Seven steps. That's how far it is from my side of the bed to the bathroom door. Just seven short steps. Which means that if I lived in Las Vegas, I could be arrested! Because a new Las Vegas ordinance that bans using the outdoors as a toilet also "mistakenly"
makes it illegal to sleep near a deposit of urine or feces.
Granted, the ordinance says it's illegal for any person who has urinated or defecated in a public place to "fail to clean or remove the material deposited" immediately, and makes it a misdemeanor offense to go to the bathroom in a public place unless it's in an "appropriate sanitary facility." But it also contains a provision making it illegal to "knowingly establish" temporary, portable, or open sleeping quarters within five hundred feet of any deposit of urine or feces, unless that deposit is made in an appropriate sanitary facility.
Asked about the sleeping-near-feces provision on Thursday, Las Vegas City Attorney Brad Jerbic said it got into the ordinance by mistake, and will not be enforced. "We were reviewing all park rules, including sleeping, camping and a number of other things people associate with parks," he said. "The decision, by me, was to take this (provision) out of the defecation/urination bill and look at it with respect to park rules in general. It was my mistake that it didn't come out."
(Those last few words made this PoopReporter giggle, just a bit.)
"Seriously, are you kidding me?" asked Lee Rowland, public advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. "I don't know how on earth a police officer would determine whether someone has knowingly set up shop next to ‘urine or feces.'"
A lack of public toilets sometimes makes it impossible for homeless people to find an "appropriate facility." Jerbic said the provision wouldn't have targeted the homeless, but is meant to address public health issues. "We are talking about camping or sleeping near unsanitary conditions," he said.
Jerbic said he plans to talk to public health officials about what is a safe distance to camp from "unsanitary conditions." When the measure does appear again, the "allowed" distance between sleepers and urine or feces will be much shorter than five hundred feet.
Is Las Vegas targeting the homeless? Or is this really a health issue, as they state? SHOULD the homeless have the right to crap anywhere they want to crap and then camp nearby? What about houses that don't have plumbing, as they many PoopReporters have described? And what about DOG poop and piss? Every park I've ever visited, there are dogs running around everywhere, and even if the owners clean up the dogs' poop (and some DON'T), the critters most assuredly piss EVERYWHERE. Almost ANYWHERE a homeless person "camped" would be right atop a "deposit" of urine. Does THAT violate the ordinance? And how is any of this enforceable?
