Dothan, AL Parking Rules: Loading Zones (2026)

Dothan does not carve loading zones out in a single stand-alone ordinance; instead, § 98-42 gives the city traffic engineer authority to install, maintain, and remove the signs, signals, devices, and markings needed to regulate traffic on city streets, including the signage that designates a curb space as a loading zone. Once a loading zone is posted, § 98-42 makes it an offense against the city for any driver to fail to comply with the posted restriction. Rather than leaving that offense to the general $1.00-to-$500.00 penalty in § 1-4, the city commission set a specific, lower fine for this violation: § 98-52(c) lists parking in loading zone in its schedule of nonmoving-violation fines at $10.00, alongside similar flat fines for overtime parking, double parking, and blocking a driveway.

A driver who is cited can plead guilty before a municipal court magistrate and pay that scheduled $10.00 fine plus court costs rather than contest the case, under § 98-52(a)'s guilty-plea procedure. Because loading zones exist only where the traffic engineer has actually posted a sign, a curb is not a legal loading zone, and no citation can issue, until the city has installed the marking; there is no separate zoning-code definition of a loading zone as a land use feature.