By DPA
Stockholm : Urinating in public in Sweden can be an expensive business.
Swedish police are clamping down harder than ever on men who make indiscriminate use of street lamps, trees, bushes and kiosk walls.
“Nothing else has worked so far,” police spokesman Ulf Karlsson says in the Baltic Sea town Kalmar, explaining the explosion in fines.
Since the beginning of the year, some 2,500 Swedes have paid the 800-kronor (115-dollar) fine to the state coffers for “causing a public nuisance”, according to the Metro daily. Last year 3,300 people paid over 12 months, when the fine was only 500 kronor.
The new government line is also because the problem with “kissa” – Swedish for “peeing” – has become much worse, Karlsson says.
“We almost have a southern European situation here now with all the beer gardens and outdoor cafes. After drinking their fill, people just head for the next pillar or post.”
Some 90 percent of all fined offenders were drunk, he says.
Patrolling police are told not to hesitate or get caught up in discussions – but simply to dish out fines as soon as they catch someone in flagrante.
“Of course we understand if someone has a good reason, such as a prostate condition,” Karlsson concedes.
But most offenders pay without flinching, even though they frequently ask whether the police have nothing better to do.
Karlsson knows of no case of a woman causing such a nuisance. Women tend, rather, to be among the victims – like Margita Westin, whose front garden is opposite a beer garden.
“This weekend it was quiet. I’ve only seen 10 or so people peeing in my garden,” she commented sarcastically to the local paper.
That men feel their stone-age privilege is being threatened became clear earlier this summer when a woman dared to do it in public, and even announced it as art.
Not only did Spanish performance artist Itziar Okariz avoid being fined for her Public Peeing Show in the Artic Circle town of Umea but she even received a 10,000-kronor fee.
“Honestly, are we paying our taxes for that?” outraged Eriks and Lennarts wrote to their local newspapers.
During the performance a young Swede – who thought the whole business a bit silly – pushed to the front and tried to collect the squirting urine.
“If you pee in public you have to be prepared for reactions,” the artist shrugged – and offered the man a kiss.