Shelby, MI Public Conduct: Loitering Rules (2026)

Chapter 170, Disorderly Conduct, was adopted in 1977 and amended in its entirety on March 23, 2026 by Ordinance No. 05-26. Section 170-1 defines a public place broadly as any place the general public has access to for business, entertainment or another lawful purpose, expressly including store and restaurant entrances, streets, alleys, athletic fields, parks, picnic shelters, public buildings, trails, walking paths, and business parking lots. Section 170-2 lists the unlawful acts, and Subsection G makes it unlawful to loiter in any public place or to conduct oneself there so as to obstruct the free and uninterrupted passage of the public.

The adjoining Subsection H separately bars prowling about any public place or on another person's private premises at night without the owner's authority or permission, a related but distinct offense from loitering. Other subsections in the same list cover indecent conduct, fighting, jostling crowds, unauthorized fireworks, peeping, false emergency calls, trespassing on school grounds, property damage, and resisting arrest, showing that the loitering clause sits inside a broad catch-all disorderly conduct ordinance rather than a narrow anti-vagrancy law. Section 170-3 makes a violation of any subsection of the chapter a civil infraction, so loitering, obstructing passage and prowling are all enforced the same way, through the village's municipal civil infraction process rather than as misdemeanors.