Jacksonville, NC Curfew Laws: Park Curfew (2026)

City Code Sec. 16-1 makes it unlawful, when signs designating park hours are posted by the director of parks and recreation, for any person to enter upon or use city park facilities outside the approved hours of use, unless that person receives special permission from the director. The director sets and posts the hours for each of the city's parks individually rather than the code fixing one citywide closing time, and Sec. 16-3 lists the parks this section covers, including Freedom Fountain, Jacksonville Commons, Wilson Bay Park, Riverwalk Crossing, and Sturgeon City, plus any pocket park or bicycle trail defined as a park under Sec.

1-2. Related park-safety rules in Article II reinforce after-hours enforcement: Sec. 16-26 bars pets from running at large in a park or trail way except where posted, requiring a leash no longer than six feet, and Sec. 16-27 bans hunting, trapping, wounding, injuring, or killing any animal in a city park. Sec. 16-31 separately prohibits taking, cutting, removing, destroying, or injuring any artifact, rock, tree, flower, shrub, fern, or other plant or mineral in a park, which applies around the clock, not only after posted hours.

Because the park-hours rule is triggered by posted signage rather than a single ordinance-wide time, the closing time for a given park is established at that park's entrance rather than in the code itself, and someone with the parks director's special permission can be present after hours without violating the section.