Pawtucket, RI Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Sit-Lie Rules (2026)

Chapter 266, "Loitering," Article I, was approved in 1967 (Ch. No. 1135, codifying Sec. 12-11 of the 1966 Code) and its core prohibition, § 266-1, has not been amended since: no person may loiter, lounge or sleep in or upon a street, park or public place or in a public building, or obstruct access to a public building or passage through a public street, park or public place. Section 266-2 defines "loiter" expansively rather than narrowly. It reaches obstructing the free passage of pedestrians or vehicles, obstructing or molesting anyone lawfully present, remaining idle in one spot without an identifiable legitimate purpose, walking about aimlessly or "hanging around," and, notably, refusing to move on when a police officer asks, so long as the officer is acting reasonably to preserve public order.

The same section extends "public place" to reach the quasi-public area in front of a store, restaurant or shop and to private parking lots not owned by the person charged. The ordinance predates by decades the sit-lie ordinances other cities have adopted specifically to target sidewalk camping, but its text already reaches sleeping or lounging in a City street, park or public place, and gives a police officer a stand-alone basis, a refusal to move on, to make an arrest even where none of the other listed acts is present. A related but separate article, Article II, added in 1991, targets loitering for prostitution or indecent-act solicitation and carries a heavier fine.