The City of Plattsburgh, New York has an increasing problem with public urination. However, the biggest problem is that the city kept only five percent of the money streaming out of these arrests to the state. It may be a sign of the economic times that cities and states are fighting over urination fines as a new stream of revenue.
Plattsburgh has declared a public urination “epidemic.” Plattsburgh police Lt. Scott Beebie said the most common urination sites are located around downtown business.
The City Council decided this week to make disorderly conduct a local law. City Council member Chris Jackson explained:”What it does is instead of sending 95 percent of the fine to the state … we now keep 95 percent of the fine and send 5 percent to the state. Nothing’s changed. The actual wording of the law is no different than it was yesterday, so it’s just a matter of keeping money here in the city.”
It is unclear how much the city will become dependent on this new revenue stream or whether it will create a perverse incentive to add drinking fountains and pictures of ocean scenes to increase the rate of violators.
There are also the problems of interstate commerce. If a defendant urinates across a state line, where is he prosecuted and which state gets the fine?
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You know urine trouble when they are making money from public urination!
This is ridiculous. There’s obviously a dearth of public restrooms in Plattsburgh. Instead of trying to fix the problem, the city tries to make money off of its mismanagement. Here’s a solution: If they can’t afford to build new restrooms, pay off hostile private establishments to accept walk-ins. I think its perfectly reasonable for the public to expect public lavatories.
This is amazing that one city collects enough money from fines related to public urination that the state and city would be able to fight about their split of the overflow of funds. If New York city is not getting enough of a share, they could always stop enforcing it and then noone benefits from this natural process.