Dakota County, MN Public Conduct: Loitering Rules (2026)

7, titled Unlawful Occupancy, is aimed at protecting park assets and keeping the park environment safe. It lists three prohibited acts: entering in any way any building, installation, or area that is under construction, locked, or closed to public use; being upon any building, installation, or area after its posted closing time or before its posted opening time, or otherwise contrary to a posted notice anywhere in a county park; and being inside a building or closed area to loiter, sleep, congregate, or enter for the purpose of engaging in any criminal act, when that space is not specifically designated for such use, at any time of day.

That third clause is the loitering-specific rule: it does not ban loitering in open, designated park spaces such as picnic areas or trails, but it does prohibit lingering, sleeping, or gathering inside buildings or closed areas that were never meant to be occupied that way, regardless of the hour. Read together with the separate posted-hours clause, the section functions as the county's mechanism for keeping people out of maintenance buildings, locked restroom facilities, closed seasonal structures, and off-limits construction zones, rather than as a general anti-loitering rule for open park grounds. The ordinance sits in Chapter 4, Public Health, Safety, and Conduct, of the county's park-specific code and applies only to Dakota County Park property.