Civil Rights
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San Francisco has been battling a public urination problem for decades. The city tried increasing the fines for peeing in public. It tried mobile solar-powered toilets. It even tried urine-repellant paint that makes the piss splash back on the pisser. Now the City by the Bay is being sued for its latest effort to curb public urination: a public urinal.
Referred to as a pissoir in the lawsuit, and more accurately described as "a three-inch hole in the center of a three-foot diameter concrete base" in Mission Dolores Park, the urinal has drawn the ire of a local church organization and a conservative legal institute labeled as hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as a comedic response from the City Attorney's Office. So yeah, this should be fun.
The lawsuit, filed by the Pacific Justice Institute on behalf of the San Francisco Chinese Christian Union, calls the pissoir "injurious to health," "grossly unseemly," and "indecent, and offensive to the senses." It also complains that the pissoir, which exposes users to "public shame and embarrassment," does not provide equal access to persons with disabilities.
Some other highlights from the suit:
Clearly not everyone is a fan of San Francisco's cleanup plan. You can read the lawsuit in full below:
San Francisco Chinese Christian Union, et al. v. City and County of San Francisco, et al.; Complaint by FindLaw