La Mesa, CA Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

Section 10.52.080, part of Chapter 10.52's public-property rules adopted by Ordinance 2662 in December 1995, bars urinating or defecating in or upon any street, sidewalk, alley, parkway, plaza, park, school or educational facility, commercial shopping facility, public building, or other publicly maintained lands, or in any place open to the public or exposed to public view within La Mesa. The only exception is when the act occurs inside a restroom, urinal, toilet or other facility designed for the sanitary disposal of human waste; there is no exception written into the section for a locked or unavailable restroom.

The section sits in the same chapter as La Mesa's camping ban, Section 10.52.030, its public-property storage ban, Section 10.52.040, and its obstruction rule, Section 10.52.070, and the La Mesa Police Department cites it in the same enforcement responses that address street camping and loitering complaints in the La Mesa Village downtown and along the trolley corridor. A violation is prosecuted under the citywide general penalty clause, Section 1.01.080, as an infraction, and because Section 10.52.080 is not among the sections Section 1.01.130 elevates to misdemeanor status, it remains an infraction-level offense carrying a fine of up to $250 rather than jail exposure.

Each separate act, and each day a continuing violation persists, is treated as its own offense under Section 1.01.080, and repeat or aggravated conduct can also be charged separately as a public nuisance under the code's general nuisance-abatement authority.