Mason County, WA Public Conduct: Loitering Rules (2026)

Mason County Code Section 9.44.040, within Chapter 9.44 governing county-owned real property including parks and property held in trust, prohibits being, remaining in, or loitering about in any county park area, on county-owned real property, or property held in trust while in a state of intoxication. The prohibition attaches to intoxication itself, not to standing around sober; a person merely lingering in a park with no intoxication is not covered by this section. Subsection (1) extends the same standard to county staff: park hosts, the volunteers and employees who oversee county park facilities, are barred from being intoxicated while performing their park host duties.

Enforcement runs through Section 9.44.110, the chapter's violation and penalties section. Beyond any other applicable ordinance, failing to comply with Chapter 9.44 or with any other county rule, regulation, or applicable federal, state, or local law subjects the violator to ejection from the county park, county-owned real property, or property held in trust, and makes the person guilty of a misdemeanor trespassing in the second degree under RCW 9A.52.080. Mason County Community Development and the Sheriff's Office enforce park rules in the unincorporated county, since Shelton runs its own parks separately. Because the ordinance is intoxication-specific, officers responding to a complaint in a Belfair, Allyn, Hoodsport, or Union park need observable signs of intoxication, not merely a person sitting or standing in the area, before the ejection and trespassing provisions of Section 9.44.110 apply.