Waco, TX Public Conduct: Aggressive Panhandling (2026)

City Code section 13-358 lists five separate triggers for a solicitation offense. First, soliciting "in an aggressive manner in a public area" is banned everywhere in the city; section 13-357 defines aggressive manner to include intentionally or recklessly intimidating, threatening, abusive, coercive, or obscene conduct that would cause a reasonable person to fear for their safety, using fighting words likely to spark an imminent breach of the peace, or obstructing a sidewalk, doorway, or passageway so that the person solicited or a driver must take evasive action.

Second, solicitation is banned on buses, at bus stations or stops, and at transit-authority passenger facilities. Third, a 25-foot buffer applies around automated teller facilities, bank entrances and exits, check-cashing business entrances and exits, and marked crosswalks. Fourth, solicitation is banned on either side of any street on a block where a school or child-care facility has an entrance or exit. Fifth, all solicitation is banned inside the mapped Waco Public Improvement District Number One, in both its western and eastern zones, from one-half hour after sunset until one-half hour before sunrise.

Critically, section 13-358(6) states that a culpable mental state is not required for offenses under the bus, buffer-zone, school, and PID-nighttime provisions, meaning the city does not have to prove the person knew they were in a restricted area or time to convict.