Terrebonne Parish, LA Public Conduct: Aggressive Panhandling (2026)

Terrebonne Parish's anti-panhandling law is older and broader than most cities' aggressive-panhandling ordinances: it is folded into the vagrancy statute at § 19-238, tracing to § 9-72 of the 1965 City Code and last amended by Ordinance No. 4563 in October 1990. ' The same section lumps begging in with five other vagrancy categories, including habitual gamblers, able-bodied people without lawful support who refuse available work, and people supported gratis by pension or welfare recipients, showing the ordinance targets a person's overall status rather than any single aggressive act like blocking a sidewalk or following a pedestrian.

Subsection (b) makes vagrancy a misdemeanor; since no fine is listed in § 19-238 itself, the Code's general penalty at § 1-6 applies, up to 30 days in the parish jail or a $500 fine, or both. Separately, at the Terrebonne Bayouwalk along Bayou Terrebonne, § 20-137 imposes a flat, unqualified ban on panhandling alongside skateboarding, fishing, swimming, bicycles and loitering, adopted by Ordinance No. 7998 in June 2011; that ban applies only within the Bayouwalk and carries no exception for charitable solicitation. Outside the Bayouwalk, an able-bodied panhandler's actual conduct, whether courteous or aggressive, does not change the vagrancy analysis under § 19-238: the statute reaches the act of begging itself, not just aggressive or threatening solicitation.