Defecation and urination will soon be illegal in Evanston.

Publicly, that is.

At the next Evanston City Council meeting in August, the City Council could pass an ordinance that would specifically outlaw public defecation and urination — offenses for which Evanston police occasionally issue city ordinance citations. But these activities are not actually illegal under the language of city law, making it harder for the city to effectively punish public acts of excretion.

The Evanston Police Department had requested that a more specific ordinance be passed. Offenders who had been accused of such acts had been found not liable because the current city ordinance does not specifically outlaw defecating or urinating in public.

“The ordinance that we were citing prior to this was much more general, it basically dealt with indecent exposure,” said Kathleen Brenniman, the city’s assistant lawyer.

“The police wanted an ordinance that was more specific to this kind of particular violation so that we would have less chance of losing the ticket,” she added.

The current ordinance about public obscenity says it only is illegal “for any person to appear in a public place in a state of nudity or to make any indecent exposure of his/her person.”

The proposed ordinance, which was discussed at the Administration and Public Works committee meeting on Monday, caught some aldermen by surprise.

“It strikes me as extremely odd and leads to my surprise that we would need an ordinance; I guess we need it to be more explicit,” said Ald. Edmund Moran (6th).

“It seemed more than obvious to me that someone who would engage in those activities was acting in a way that would be considered publicly indecent.”