Leominster, MA Parking Rules: Loading Zones (2026)

Leominster's parking code creates a specific category for commercial loading called a service zone, codified at Chapter 13, Article III, Division 2 (Prohibited Parking). Under Section 13-38, no vehicle may occupy a marked service zone on any city street for more than fifteen minutes, and that window stretches to a maximum of one-half hour only when the vehicle is actually engaged in loading or unloading. A vehicle that sits in a service zone without actively loading, or that overstays the thirty-minute cap even while loading, is in violation regardless of how the space is marked.

Section 13-38.1 lists the streets where the city has actually painted or posted these zones: Columbia Street's south side beginning sixty-five feet east of Main Street for a distance of forty feet, and Merriam Avenue's south side from seventy feet east of Main Street to the Main Street and Water Street intersection. The list has been amended three times since 1979 (5-23-79, 11-12-96, 8-13-01), so a downtown loading spot that existed decades ago may no longer be an official service zone. Because the designation is location-specific, a driver must check for on-street signage or markings rather than assume every commercial curb functions as a fifteen-minute zone.

The fine sits in the same Group B tier as bus-stop, taxicab-stand and sidewalk-parking violations under Section 13-33's schedule of parking fines, adopted under G.L. c. 90, section 20A: up to twenty-five dollars per ticket. Enforcement of the prohibited-parking division falls to the mayor's designee and the Leominster police chief under Section 13-66.15.