Gilroy, CA Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Sit-Lie Rules (2026)

Section 16.29 targets obstruction, not mere presence: the ordinance reaches anyone who willfully and maliciously sits, lies, kneels, crouches, sleeps, or otherwise occupies part of a street, sidewalk, or other public way so that the occupation blocks or unreasonably interferes with the free movement of pedestrians, motor vehicles, or other travel. Two carve-outs are written directly into the section: a person standing or sitting on the curb to watch a parade that the city has permitted is exempt, and so is anyone sitting on a bench or other seating that the city itself has installed for public use.

Everyone else who blocks the path is guilty of a misdemeanor, the same classification the adjoining § 16.30 uses for climbing on monuments, fountains, and posted lawns, in the same chapter, Chapter 16, Offenses - Miscellaneous, that houses Gilroy's other public-space conduct rules. The ordinance dates to Ordinance No. 76-22, adopted December 6, 1976, and was amended twice more, in 1980 and 1994, without changing its central obstruction standard. Because the section requires that the blocking be willful and malicious, Gilroy Police Department officers enforcing it must be able to show intent to obstruct, not just that a person happened to be sitting on a crowded sidewalk; a person resting quietly against a wall without blocking the path of others is not, on the text of § 16.29 alone, in violation.