New Brunswick, NJ Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

In the City of New Brunswick, New Jersey, Section 9.04.030 of Chapter 9.04 states in subsection A that it is unlawful for any person to urinate or defecate in public. The city adopted the section on November 20, 2009 as Ordinance O-110904, and it replaced the older prior code § 6-25.

Subsection B defines a public place as any place to which the public has access, including any street, highway, road, alley, boardwalk or sidewalk. It also includes the front or the neighborhood of any store, shop, restaurant, tavern or other place of business, and public grounds, areas, parks and marinas. Parking lots and other vacant private property are covered when they are not owned by or under the control of the person charged, and for a minor the test is whether the property is owned or controlled by his or her parent or guardian. That reach matters in a college city with a dense downtown of bars and restaurants, because the definition captures the frontage and neighborhood of a tavern, not only the street itself.

Subsection C is the distinctive part. It opens with the words Notwithstanding the general penalty set forth in Chapter 1.08, so the ordinary fine range of $100.00 to $2,000.00 does not control. Instead, a person convicted of a violation involving public urination pays a minimum mandatory fine of one hundred fifty dollars ($150.00) in addition to any other penalty imposed. A person convicted of a violation involving public defecation pays a minimum, mandatory fine of two hundred fifty dollars ($250.00), again in addition to any other penalty imposed. In both cases the fine is not suspended or waived by the court.

Because the section says the mandatory fine is in addition to any other penalty, the municipal court can add to it. The city's related disorderly conduct section, 9.04.050, separately prohibits exposing genitals, buttocks or anal region to public view and carries a fine not to exceed $2,000.00 and/or imprisonment for not more than ninety days.