Las Vegas accidentally passes law against sleeping near feces

The law, in its infinite majesty, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread" - Anatole France.

....and, in Las Vegas, to sleep within 500 feet of inappropriately deposited feces:

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- City officials have made it illegal to sleep within 500 feet of urine or feces, but the city attorney says the new law was passed by mistake and won't be enforced.

The new ordinance makes it illegal to "knowingly establish" sleeping quarters near defecation unless that "deposit" is made in an appropriate sanitary facility. It was passed unanimously by the Las Vegas City Council as part of a bill making it a misdemeanor to go to the bathroom in public.

City Attorney Brad Jerbic says the council will consider a revised version of the ordinance that shortens the distance between sleeper and deposits.

"We were reviewing all park rules, including sleeping, camping and a number of other things people associate with parks," Jerbic said Thursday. "The decision, by me, was to take this (provision) out of the defecation urination bill and look at it with respect to park rules in general. It was my mistake that it didn't come out."

The ACLU and advocates for the homeless say that this law is part of a larger effort to target the homeless in Las Vegas. In July, the city passed a law making it a crime to give food to homeless people in parks.

Comments

[DAS]

the city passed a law making it a crime to give food to homeless people in parks.

NPR had a special on this one. The ACLU pointed out that the law is bizarre (my wording) in that it asks people to guess (by stereotyping?) whether a person is homeless -- you can give food to a random person and if he has a home, you're safe, but if he's homeless, you've broken the law.

It strikes me that the people pushing that law (pretty obviously deliberately) conflated correlation and causation. True, organizations giving food to the homeless in parks correlates with more homeless in the parks, but that doesn't mean the food-handing out causes that increase. Rather the city, which disingenuously says it wants to make sure the homeless go to shelters rather than parks, has kicked the homeless out of where the shelters are, so they are heading elsewhere and those who are actually trying to help the homeless are following those in need of help. It doesn't make sense that those helping the homeless wouldn't rather hand out food at shelters (they want to attract homeless to those shelters, plus who wants to be outdoors in the desert heat?), but if the police are clearing homeless away from where the shelters are, it doesn't make sense to hand out food there.

The city of Los Vegas deserves some sort of reward for their disinginuity and their willful ignorance of the difference between causation and correlation. Perhaps Atrios can crown the city government with wanker-of-the-time-period monikers?

[togolosh]

There are many laws that make me want to crap on lawmaker's lawns, but this want makes me want to call the cops after I do it. I'd love to see the mayor hauled away in the middle of the night because he was sleeping near crap.

[Magnus Malmborn]

toglosh, it says "knowningly establish sleeping quarters".

And then, "to go to the bathroom in public"; is that an euphemism or will public restrooms have to have discrete entrances with cover-screens like some sleazy porn-shop?

[Trystero]

Does the law specify human feces? Or if a dog craps on my lawn near my bedroom, I am now in violation?

Stupid, stupid lawmakers. Fortunately, this also allows us to highlight their stupidity and/or disingenousness

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I'll have to check my AP style guide about the official euphemism for urination-and-or-defecation.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Surprisingly, the AP offers no guidance as to the appropriateness of the phrase "go to the bathroom" as a euphemism.

[John Lucid]

I am SO glad that the city of Las Vegas is addressing these issues. I'd hate to see their ivory city tarnished in any way. I refuse to blow my kid's college money at a blackjack table in any town that can't keep their environs clean and family friendly.

[Amanda Marcotte]

So basically you can't take a shit and sleep next to it. And this is the land of the free?

Kidding, kidding. I'm always amused by how city councils try to word anti-homeless laws. You get the distinct impression they'd like to just make a law saying you have to have a house, but if they did that, then there might be some kind of weird enforcement thing where they have to actually provide the houses and god forbid the state step up and do its damn job like that.

[Alon Levy]

These amateurs should have a little talk with the Singaporean government. In Singapore the government has either gotten rid of homeless people by making them take $1/hour jobs, or, more likely, removed them from areas where there might be tourists or rich people.

[cfrost]

Considering that Las Vegas has been fueling hypertrophic sprawl in the most inappropriate place in North America by purchasing water rights throughout southern Nevada, turning desert seeps and springs into dust, a more sensible ordinance would replace sewer hookups with outhouses. Then everyone could sleep next to their shit.

[Bruce]

What about my diaper babies? I guess they go to juvenile hall if they sleep and relieve themselves without waking up and crying from a nap.

[Magnus Malmborn]

Alon, how does forcing people into $1/h jobs make them not homeless? Is that a living wage in Singapore?

[Peter McGrath]

In one British town a byelaw allows pregnant women to urinate into a policeman's helmet. Not while he's wearing it, obviously. That would be too wierd.

[Isaac]

The law was passed accidentally?

Well, you know, shit happens.

I'm so ashamed.