Pee-proof paint will soon grace a few problem spots on San Francisco streets, promising to bounce urine back on its issuers.
"We are piloting it to see if we can discourage people from peeing at many of our hot spots," Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru
told the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday. "Nobody wants to smell urine. We are trying different things to try to make San Francisco smell nice and look beautiful."
Nuru gathered reporters at a demonstration in the Mission District at the 16th Street Bart Plaza for a demonstration.
"Watch your shoes over there, brother," Nuru said, squirting bottled water on a new patch of the pee-proof paint.
"The team that did the testing, they were excited because the liquid bounces back more than we thought it would. Anything we can do to deter people is a good thing."
Nuru explained that the paint was first piloted by Germany, in Hamburg’s St. Pauli quarter — once notorious for drunken public urination. It's made, however, right here in the USA, by Ultra-tech, a Florida company in the chemical cleanup and waste management business.
Since the beginning of the year, Public Works has received 375 requests to steam clean urine specifically. That's just 5 percent of the 7,504 requests Public Works receives about everything from human feces to pigeon feces.
"I think it’s a great thing," a resident from nearby Oakland told the Chronicle. "It’s just so nasty right now. I work over here, and I see people using the bathroom all over the place every day. It’s so inhumane, and it smells disgusting. They’re about to get what’s coming to them."
Advocates of the homeless population have said that paint alone will not solve the public urination problem, and that providing alternatives is key.