Waco, TX Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

Section 13-374 states plainly that a person commits an offense if they urinate or defecate in or on a public area or in public view, and provides only one affirmative defense: that the person was in a restroom. Section 13-357 defines "public area" expansively as any outdoor area to which the public has access, expressly listing sidewalks, streets, highways, parks, parking lots, alleyways, plazas, yards, pedestrian ways, utility rights-of-way, and the outdoor common area of a school, hospital, apartment house, office building, transport facility, or other public place.

Because the offense also reaches conduct done "in public view," it is not limited to a person physically standing on a public area, a person on private property who is visible to the public can also be charged. The section sits in the same Code of Ordinances division, chapter 13, article XII, division 1, that Waco adopted by Ordinance No. 2016-710 on October 18, 2016, alongside its solicitation and public-camping offenses, and it is enforced the same way, by citation from a Waco police officer.