Dothan, AL Parking Rules: Abandoned Vehicles (2026)

Dothan City Code § 98-161(a) bans leaving any vehicle or property abandoned, unclaimed or unattended on a street or city premises, inside the city or its police jurisdiction, for more than seven calendar days. Subsection (b) separately bans keeping a partially dismantled, nonoperating, wrecked, junked or discarded vehicle, or any vehicle without a current tag, on private property for more than seven consecutive days. Exceptions apply only if the vehicle sits inside a completely screened enclosure: a private owner restoring one vehicle, a licensed auto or body repair shop, or a licensed junkyard, auto wrecking yard or salvage yard.

Even a screened repair-shop vehicle becomes a violation automatically after 90 days on the premises. Under § 98-162, Dothan police may impound a vehicle violating § 98-161, one blocking traffic whose driver won't move it or can't due to injury, or one left unattended and hazardous to traffic, towing it to a city garage or designated storage lot. If the owner can be identified from the registration, police must mail written notice of the removal, the reason and the storage location, and notify the state within five days per Code of Ala.

1975 § 32-13-2(c). For a private-property violation, the owner (or occupant/user) gets written notice by certified mail, hand delivery by a uniformed officer, or newspaper publication if they can't be found; if uncorrected within seven days of that notice, police may cite the owner under § 98-162(c), with each day's continued violation a separate offense. The chief of police keeps a permanent record of impounded property (§ 98-163), and any vehicle unclaimed and stored three months or more is sold at public auction at the county courthouse at least every six months, after two weekly newspaper notices (§ 98-166). An owner may redeem the vehicle before sale by paying towing, storage, maintenance and publication costs (§§ 98-164, 98-165).