Lawrence, MA Public Conduct: Loitering Rules (2026)

Section 9.08.050 of the Lawrence Code of Ordinances, titled Loafing and loitering in streets, Obstructing foot travelers, bars two distinct things. First, no person may willfully obstruct the free passage of foot travelers on a street. Second, once a police officer directs a person in a street to move on, that person cannot loiter or remain for more than five minutes within 500 feet of the spot where the officer told them to leave. Read together, the section gives Lawrence police a move-on power: an officer does not need a separate loitering charge to clear a sidewalk or corner, only a directive, and the five-minute, 500-foot window is what turns staying put into a violation.

The ordinance carries an explicit carve-out for labor activity. It states that nothing in the section denies the right of peaceful picketing or parading singly or in numbers, with or without placards, in or on any public way or street where persons may lawfully be, in the course of a labor dispute as defined in subsection 7 of section 2 of chapter 150A of the General Laws. That exemption means a police move-on order under this section cannot be used to break up a lawful picket line, even though it reaches ordinary sidewalk loitering and blocking of foot traffic. The section traces to the prior code Section 24-23 and does not carry a doc number tied to a modern amendment, unlike neighboring sections in the same chapter. The text itself does not attach a specific dollar fine, unlike other sections of Chapter 9.08 that spell out fixed penalties.