Hoboken Public Urination Problem – Would You Chastise Anyone for Peeing in Public? [POLL/VIDEO]

I knew my old neighborhood was starting to go to hell when on one Christmas Eve, while walking to my folks house with my wife and daughter in tow in full view of us, some guy brazenly starts urinating up against a wall.

I’ve never seen anyone just pee in pubic like that in my neighborhood.

Not to say it hasn’t happened, but just not out in the open.

So I started screaming at the guy, who immediately apologized.

But I know some people that don’t have that kind of shame, and wouldn’t care where they relieved themselves.
And it’s especially more of a problem in places where there’s a lot of nightlife.
According to this:


Morristown Municipal Judge Gary Troxel made headlines in April when he castigated more than 20 people in his courtroom who were charged with urinating in public.

The problem is so pervasive, Troxel said, it’s making parts of the Morris County municipality reek.

“On some streets, when it rains in Morristown, they smell like urine,” he said.
This is not a problem just in Morristown.

In Hoboken, where thousands of revelers descend each weekend on the bars and restaurants that crowd the downtown, dozens of people each year are cited for violating city ordinance 145-22: public urination.

In spring and summer of 2012, city court records show that at least 64 individuals were caught voiding their bladders on the streets and sidewalks.

About three-quarters of the citations resulted in guilty pleas. All but 11 were handed out between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. About eight were given to women.

Fines ranged from $250 to $1,000.


The stats don’t seem to surprise anyone.

Paul Dawson, owner of Mulligans bar on First Street, said his own patrons are well behaved but as for those who crowd the surrounding streets, not so much.

“I see this place on a Friday and Saturday night,” Dawson said, shaking his head.
A city woman smoking outside Biggie’s on Newark Street said she’s often caught people peeing in the stairwell leading to the basement of her building.

“It’s the bars – people, when they get drunk, they don’t know how to act,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified.

City spokesman Juan Melli said Hoboken has increased the number of officers they have patrolling the streets on nights and weekends to address problems like public urination.

Darren Bornemann, 32, lives on Court Street, a cobblestone road that runs parallel to Washington Street. Bornemann, who moved to Mile Square City eight years ago, said traffic from Second Street often spills onto Court Street and, occasionally, drunken partiers loiter in front of his house.

“I’ve almost gotten into a couple of fights,” he said.

And that’s the issue.

Try and chastise someone doing it, and either they skulk away shame, or more than likely tell you to see where you gotta go, leading to perhaps a physical confrontation.

I’m guessing more the latter than the former.