Meriden, CT Curfew Laws: Juvenile Curfew (2026)

Meriden Code § 91-1 makes it unlawful for any child under the age of 15 years to loiter on the streets or in any other public place in the City after 9:00 p.m. and before 4:00 a.m., unless the child is accompanied by a parent or guardian, or by another adult into whose care and custody the child has been committed by the parent or guardian. The chapter traces to a 1963 curfew ordinance carried into the current code as Chapter 91, and it sits alongside the peace-and-good-order chapter (Ch.

153) and the streets and sidewalks chapter (Ch. 180), both cross-referenced in the general references. Section 91-2 extends the reach of the ordinance to adults: it is separately unlawful for any parent or other person having control of a minor to compel or permit that minor to violate the curfew. That means enforcement is not limited to the child found on the street after hours; a parent who knowingly lets a child under 15 stay out past 9:00 p.m. unaccompanied can be cited directly under § 91-2 regardless of the child's own conduct.

The curfew applies citywide to public streets and other public places, not to private property, and the accompaniment exception requires an actual adult present, not merely permission granted in advance. Penalties for both the child's violation of § 91-1 and a parent's violation of § 91-2 were added to the chapter in 1996 as a single monetary fine schedule covering the whole chapter.