James City County, VA Curfew Laws: Park Curfew (2026)

Section 16-14, 'Hours of operation,' delegates the actual closing schedule to the director of parks and recreation rather than fixing a single curfew hour in the ordinance itself: the director shall establish hours of operation for public parks and recreational facilities, and those hours may prohibit use of certain facilities at certain times. The section's second sentence supplies the enforceable prohibition: no person shall make use of public parks and recreation facilities during prohibited hours. Read together with section 16-23, which requires the director's rules and regulations to be posted at each facility and kept available for review in the office of the county administrator, the practical effect is that each park or specific facility, a ballfield, a boat landing, a playground, can carry its own posted closing time rather than one countywide park curfew.

A visitor who remains in, or enters, a park or facility after its posted hours is in violation of section 16-14 regardless of whether any other misconduct occurs. Because the county file does not print numeric closing hours in the ordinance itself, this record does not state a specific clock time; the operative hours are whatever the director has posted for that facility. Enforcement, including possible ejection and misdemeanor prosecution, follows the general chapter 16 penalty in section 16-24.