WASHINGTON - Nov. 13, 2019 - Just as a political protest known as the Boston Tea Party was necessary to fight lawlessness in 1773, an updated version tentatively termed the San Francisco Pee Party might be necessary to fight the lawlessness arising from a decision that the City By The Bay will no longer prosecute many crimes including urinating, defecating, or camping in public, suggests public interest law professor John Banzhaf.
District attorney Chesa Boudin, who announced that the city will refuse to prosecute people who urinate in public, thereby effectively making public peeing perfectly legal, might well change his mind if a group fed up with lawlessness, and city streets filled with urine and feces, were to stage an organized pee party; openly urinating in his presence whenever he appears in public to go to or from his office or home, make a speech or other public appearance, or simply enjoy a night out with his female partner and/or friends at a local restaurant, night club, or other entertainment venue.
Indeed, he and his female partner might really begin to realize the seriousness of his decision even more if those seeking law and order began peeing in front of and around his own home in San Francisco, and set up tents on the sidewalk outside his home or even on this front lawn, argues Banzhaf.
The idea of a pee party in San Francisco was first voiced by Jesse Watters on Fox News, but it is not clear whether he meant it as a serious form of social protest, or just as an interesting talking point.
Banzhaf, who has disagreed with Watters on his program on other issues, in this instance wonders whether or not it might really be a completely appropriate way to call attention to the folly and lawlessness of Boudin's decision, and to the very real harm it can cause to people living or working in San Francisco.
Banzhaf has also strongly opposed demonstrators who violate the law to make a point, and has helped inspire law suits against such illegal demonstrators brought under a variety of legal theories.
But here he points out that, as a consequence of Boudin's ruling which in effective nullifies or even repeals the statutory law relating to various public offenses, urinating in public, or setting up tents and camping in them on governmental or perhaps even private property, are no longer illegal in San Francisco, so those pee party participants would seemingly being engaged in strictly legal protests.
http://banzhaf.net/ jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com @profbanzhaf
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