News Mar 21, 2012 at 4:00 am

Pioneer Square Neighbors Have a Problem with Public Urination

George Pfromm

Comments

1
Wait a minute. This seems to me to be as much a problem with male behavior and entitlement as it is a lack of public restrooms. There are no doubt women who occasionally relieve themselves in public, but overall this is behavior that men engage in simply because "they can". I have frequented all of these neighborhoods and yet I have never been unable to wait until I found a restroom, and I can guarantee that is true of every woman I know.
Perhaps a long-term solution might be found in toilet-training with an expectation that the comode will actually be used. In the meantime I suggest adult-diaper vending machines.
3
According to the Stranger, "While it's impossible to measure the exact trend of public urination..."

According to Anne Fennessy, "Once [the Seattle Seahawks] brought those porta-potties in, it reduced human waste in the square by a third."

It can't actually be BOTH, can it?

Either way, clean, SAFE facilities should be required for any high-density public space at which massive amounts of beverages are consumed on the go. When I moved downtown in 1991, it was quickly obvious that very little thought had been given to the issue of facilities in Convention Place station or anywhere else downtown. People visiting from Europe are amazed at our crude approach to urban living. And why would they not be? It's pretty fucking third-world.
4
I travel all the way from Bremerton to drink beer and piss in Pioneer Square- this is an outrage!
5
There's always the Dutch option;

http://www.thisamsterdam.com/talesfromth…
6
If you don't like public urination, stop walking your dog.
7
It's my impression that the city is considering reopening public restrooms on the Waterfall Garden facing side of SFD HQ, rather than Fire Station 10.

The two (SFD HQ & Station 10) used to be one and the same, but a new Fire Station 10 was constructed a few blocks away several years ago.
8
I used to have a dog that would always piss on the same part of the carpet every time I turned my back. I asked the vet what it was about that particular patch of carpet that made the dog want to piss just there. The answer was that after the first time, it just smelled like the place to go.

The lesson for Pioneer Square is this: If your neighborhood looks like shit, people will treat it like a toilet. Adding bathrooms isn't really the solution. Cleaning up the shit-hole (<- literally) is.
9
Here's a 1978 article from the Times that's basically about the same thing:

""Pioneer Square just one big bathroom"
http://classifiedhumanity.com/post/19774…

10
Some people are to stupid and disrespectful to piss in a bush tree or behind a dumpster or at least in a ally? they piss in door ways and poop in door ways and As Seattle gos its the Army of two legged Bugs that the City fails to deal with from time to time that "IS" the problem.

Drug addicts with no support or brains left.

Million dollar stainless steel self cleaning poopers were just drug dealers and rapist dens same as the bus stops were until they took the seats out of all of them.

Its the Party district or the urine district as it was put on the Simpsons last night so some tiny bit of logic and wisdom needs to be deployed to make it safe and clean and on a budget so you know people will be knocking you down and pissing on your face for decades to come in the Urine District.
11
Responsibility rests on beer sellers to provide sanitary restroom facilities.

Deploring consistent drunkards is more entertaining.
12
Could part of this problem be also the pervasiveness of no use of the bathroom without a purchase policy? Perhaps, rather then the city paying to develop further public facilities, they should provide a tax incentive for businesses that make a comittment to allowing the public to use their space? Even a high value voucher would be cheaper and create resources more quickly then building a few additional areas.
13
LOL!! The times I have had to take a piss in the alley's of Pioneer Square!! Too many to count.
14
No purchase no pisser = me pissing on your window. 'sup Jimmy Johns ?!! Cops were too busy dum dum, just let me pee...
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.
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15
So, maybe the city can buy back their $1,000,000 toilets that they sold on Ebay a few years back.

That worked out well.
16
I guess the Cartoon would be the City of Seattle council and Mayor McGrimm with their legs crossed holding a piss and the caption would be "Oh My Gosh! I got to pee and I don't know what to do! Help!"
17
Sorry to hear of the defiling of Pioneer Square. We honeymooned in Oregon in 1992 and I don't remember human waste being a feature of the square back then. Here in Austin we have s similar problem in the alleys and open spaces of the 6th Street district. I work in an office building on 6th and the public stairwell of the parking garage seems to be a favorite watering hole so to speak of the drunk and/or homeless set. Particularly during SXSW. Good to hear Portland is getting a handle on the problem. It seems Austin, once again, could learn a thing or two from Portland.
18
Last I checked the fine for a human shitting in public is less than that for a dog.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle911/201…
19
You can ride your bike nude in the nude bike run and run in your underwear in the underwear run and police have told me you can expose yourself as long as its not sexually motivated and as well you can take a big ol old fashion mega shit on your favorite welcome mat and the police really wont care as they do not like investigating C.S.I?

"Crap Scene Investigators" Seattle. Poop patrol Unit? Crap Intelligence Agency?
20
@1 while I'll admit it's likely a heavily male dominated sport (pissing in public) I've seen plenty of vajayjays take a squat and go to town. Sure, males should bear the brunt of this accusation but girls get drunk and use the bathroom inappropriately too FYI.

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