SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Emptying one’s bladder in a public place is a crime, even if there is no specific law prohibiting the practice, a state appeals court ruled.

Ruling on an appeal brought by a Berkeley man who was charged with cocaine possession after an officer stopped him mid-pitstop, the Court of the Appeal for the Second District said Wednesday that public urination is a crime that justified the officer’s search of the man’s pockets.

“Urination on or near a busy commercial street interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of both life and property,” Presiding Justice J. Anthony Kline wrote in an opinion that concluded public peeing qualified as “a public nuisance.”

Calif. evictee gets revenge on green

ANTIOCH, Calif. (AP) – A man who was evicted from the house he rented for years allegedly took revenge on his landlords by dumping the home’s hoarded contents – five-gallon buckets of cookies, canned food, old batteries and puzzle pieces – on the lawn.

The homeowner, Ann Stevenson, said she rented the house to Lloyd Annesley and his partner, Margaret McCoy, with a subsidized rent as a favor to the longtime family friends.

After McCoy died, Annesley learned he would have to move and his relatives helped him dump the debris before they abandoned the property last week, according to neighbors and city officials.

“They totally took advantage of us,” Stevenson said. “They were storing like they wanted to fill a bunker for a nuclear disaster.”

Stevenson said she spent $4,000 to clean up the mess, which was infested with flies and mealworms after a weekend of rain. Besides spoiled candy and food, the litter included handcuffs and Scrabble pieces.

“I wore three pairs of gloves out here. Surgical gloves, rubber gloves and then work gloves,” said Anthony Weijnschenk, whom Stevenson hired to clean up the yard. “This guy had everything. And if he had one of it, he had a dozen.”

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SMITHFIELD, Ohio (AP) – Lost on a highway, a motorist stopped to ask for directions at the home of a man who suspected the car had been stolen from his daughter, authorities said.

Michael Chapman, 54, is accused of stealing the car from a residential street Wednesday morning in Hopedale, about 130 miles east of Columbus near the West Virginia state line, authorities said.

He drove east for three miles, then pulled off state Route 151 needing directions to a nearby town and stopped randomly at the home of Thomas Eltringham, officials said.

Eltringham, 67, gave the directions, but when Chapman drove off, Eltringham called his daughter, fearing that the gold 2001 Buick LeSabre might have been hers, said Capt. R.J. Myers of the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office.

Norma Harris told her father that she had started the car, left it running so it could warm up and went back into her house, Myers said.

A patrol officer spotted the car about 25 miles away near Smithfield and chased it. The driver pulled into a driveway, got out and ran away, authorities said. Chapman was found hiding behind an auto sales office and arrested.

Chapman, of Steubenville, was being held Thursday at the Jefferson County Justice Center on charges of car theft, drunken driving and driving without a license.

Chapman was released from prison in June after serving time for a 1992 burglary, according to the Steubenville Police Department.

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JEFFERSON, Wis. (AP) – A calendar featuring local Humane Society members posing nude with their pets fetched $1,200 at a fundraising auction.

Marv Havill said the $1,200 he paid for the “Bare Because We Care” calendar was the best he ever spent – his wife posed for November.

“To be honest with you I would have paid anything,” Havill said.

Each month of the 2007 calendar features a shot of a Jefferson County Humane Society member posing with a pet and various props placed in critical places.

“Let’s just say we are bare but the posing is done in very good taste and the photography is what I would call art,” said Cynthia Weston, Jefferson County Humane Society board member and October model. “We are not being Playboy bunnies.”

The organization auctioned off the first of its 1,500 calendars at a charity ball. Most of the proceeds from the $20 calendars will go toward the group’s spay and neuter program.

Weston said the idea for the calendar came up in 1998 but it took until now for the members to build enough courage to pose nude for the organization, which celebrates its 85th anniversary next year.

“What we say is, what better way to celebrate a birthday and to make a bold statement of our commitment to the animals is to grin and bare it in our birthday suits?” she said.

AP-ES-03-10-06 0540EST