Mebane, NC Public Conduct: Loitering Rules (2026)

Section 28-126, part of Chapter 28's Article IV (Parades and Picketing), bars any person, whether participating as a picket or standing by as a spectator, from assembling and loitering on a street, sidewalk or crossing in sufficient manner or numbers to obstruct that street, sidewalk or crossing, or to annoy people engaged in legitimate business or other lawful use of the space. Although the section sits alongside Mebane's picketing rules, its wording covers any assembly that blocks passage, not only demonstrations tied to a labor dispute.

The article gives police officers authority elsewhere in Chapter 28 to disperse assemblages that tend to intimidate picketers (Section 28-125), and Section 28-81, in the chapter's separate obstructions article, similarly forbids persons from collecting and standing so as to obstruct a sidewalk or street and refusing a police officer's order to disperse. Read together, the two sections give Mebane police clear authority to order a crowd blocking a sidewalk or crossing, downtown or elsewhere in the city, to move along. Violating Section 28-126 is a misdemeanor under Section 28-121, which applies the Code's general penalty in Section 1-6 unless prosecuted criminally, meaning a $500.00 civil penalty attaches to each violation, with an additional $100.00 if the citation goes unanswered for 15 days.

Mebane Police Department officers, not a separate code enforcement unit, handle enforcement in the field, since the conduct covered is a public-order matter rather than a property-maintenance issue.