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RFH 2010, Cover Stories, Editorials

Editorial: Just Hold It!

Fri, Oct 07, 2011

Editorial: Just Hold It!

OK, someone please explain this: each time we post recent arrests by the Hamilton Police, it always includes several for violation of Penal Law 240.20(7), disorderly conduct a.k.a. urinating in public. Why?

We understand the other arrests:

  1. People, including those who are under age, drink too much and do stupid things.
  2. People, especially those who are under age, will try to buy alcohol illegally by using a fake ID;
  3. People, especially those who are drunk, will decide to leave a bar and take one last drink with them;
  4. People, especially those who just left the bar with an open container, will discard that drink someplace other than a trash can or recycling bin. 

We know why people do those things and why they get arrested.

We do not, however, understand that those who drink too much -- regardless of age:

  1. somehow view village streets as their personal bathroom.

Yes, urination often is a consequence of drinking. The more one does the later, the more they will do the former. It's biology ... or physics.

BUT, most people have the great good sense to not pee in public. Urination is -- or ought to be -- a private matter; something between the drinker and a piece of bathroom furniture usually made of white porcelain.

Is public peeing some new right of passage? Some badge of courage? A way to prove you have arrived as a drinker? A perverse requirement of Greek life?

Or, is there some physical phenomenon of local baldder capacity that makes it impossible to drink and make it home -- or even to a puiblic restroom -- before the need to pee arises?

Whatever the cause, all we can say is knock it off.

The next time you go out drinking and have to

  • go number one,
  • see a man about a horse,
  • tinkle,
  • micturate,
  • piss,
  • pee,
  • take a leak,
  • pee-pee,
  • make water,
  • relieve oneself,
  • take a leak,
  • spend a penny,
  • wee,
  • wee-wee,
  • pass water,
  • take a whiz,

don't do it in public on the village green or a side street or someone's garden or flower bed or behind a tree. Just hold it.

And, if you don't, and you wind up in court, we suggest that our esteemed local justices impose a not so new punishment. Instead of a fine or public service (even if urinal cleaning might be a good deterrant!), require offenders to wear scarlet "P's" on their chests.

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