Tuscaloosa, AL Public Conduct: Aggressive Panhandling (2026)

Sec. 17-165 defines panhandling broadly as any in-person request for an immediate donation on a street, sidewalk, municipal building, right-of-way, park, or stadium, and it treats selling an item at a grossly inflated price as a disguised donation request. Passively standing, sitting, performing, or singing with a sign, without any vocal request, is excluded from the definition. Subsection (b) then defines six specific aggressive acts: touching the person approached or blocking their path without consent, following someone who has walked away after a negative response, persisting after a negative response, using profane or abusive language or a gesture that would make a reasonable person fearful, engaging in conduct meant to intimidate or compel a donation, and offering to clean or service a vehicle without the owner's consent and then demanding payment.

Sec. 17-166 sets out three independent ways to commit unlawful panhandling: engaging in any aggressive act defined in Sec. 17-165(b); panhandling at any time after sunset or before sunrise, regardless of aggressiveness; or panhandling in specific high-traffic or high-risk locations, including a bus stop, any public transportation vehicle or facility, a parked or stopped vehicle on a public street or alley, a sidewalk cafe, or within twenty feet of an ATM or bank entrance. Because the after-dark and location-based prongs apply even to calm, ordinary solicitation, the ordinance functions as a broader time-and-place restriction layered on top of the narrower aggressive-conduct ban.