Lower Merion, PA Public Conduct: Loitering Rules (2026)

Chapter 111, Peace and Good Order, Article VI, Disorderly Conduct Generally, opens with a general definition in § 111-6: any unnecessary noise or disturbance of the peace and quiet of the community, or carrying on a business, trade or amusement in a manner that causes one, is disorderly conduct, and no person may carry on activity, except in emergencies, at a time or in a manner that causes unnecessary annoyance or disturbs the peace and quiet of the immediate neighborhood. Section 111-7 then lists specific acts that are 'hereby declared to constitute disorderly conduct' without limiting that general definition.

Subsection F names loitering directly: 'loafing, loitering, idling or lounging in or about any place or facility,' but it immediately narrows itself with a built-in exemption, excluding a person's mere presence in that place while using it for the purpose for which it exists, so someone waiting on a bench at a bus stop or standing at a store entrance is not automatically loitering under this clause. Other items in the same list give the loitering provision its context: Subsection E covers discharging firearms across streets, Subsection B covers barking animals, and Subsection G separately bars acting in streets or public places 'in a noisy, loud, boisterous and unseemly manner.' A companion Article VIA, Disorderly Property, adopted in 1991 and rewritten in 2010, escalates repeated disorderly-conduct convictions tied to the same property into a separate 'disorderly property' violation if a second event occurs at that property within 12 months of a written notice.