What kind of world are we living in if lawmakers are talking about fining people $2,000 for peeing in public?
It’s a world where facts are treated like opinions, opinions are treated as “alternate facts” and people can’t be counted on to behave properly.
We live on a beautiful island fouled by the undeniable stench of human waste in the doorways of downtown businesses, in stairwells and parking garages, in parks and beach bushes and even in the yards of private citizens who happen to live near hiking trails. And here comes state Rep. Gene Ward (R, Hawaii Kai) with a proposal to create urine-free zones. Yes, zones. Specifically, no peeing in places like playgrounds, bus stops and parking lots. Other areas — grassy hills, roadsides, quiet cul-de-sacs for example — would be, ostensibly, fair game.
In all societies, parents teach their children about proper potty behavior — where to pee, where not to pee, what to do when you need to pee but can’t get to the designated pee place. Most kids get that figured out around age 3. If a person is too gravely disabled to obey the potty rules of a 3-year-old, that person is probably too ill to be living on the street and should be involuntarily committed to a hospital for psychiatric or medical treatment.
But the homeless situation has gotten so far out of control that lawmakers are coming up with hazard-mitigation plans and harm-reduction ideas rather than permanent solutions. Another proposal aired out in the Legislature this week is to set up sanctioned homeless camping zones. If you can’t stop people from being homeless, at least you can corral them into one area and get them to stop peeing in downtown doorways.
Ward, in explaining his plan, had some pungent quotes:
“A person can be lying in their feces in a public stairwell and have an absolute constitutional right to do so, but the citizens walking over or through this public health hazard have no rights,” he said.
“Public health and hygiene is tantamount to a civilized society whether people are homeless or not, and this prohibition on public urination and defecation must be enforced.”
The counter-argument to Ward’s proposal is that instead of fining people for doing what is only natural, the government needs to build more bathroom facilities for these folks to use. But then those facilities would have to be cleaned and maintained and kept safe or else they’ll be just another set of broken-down, busted-up, sketchy bathrooms like at most of the beach parks on the island. Given the choice, peeing in a doorway may be the more pleasing option.
So on one hand, we have the punitive approach to getting people not to pee in public places, and on the other, an approach so permissive that all of us taxpayers have to pay for it. What kind of world are we living in where those are the only options?
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
