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

48, titled simply 'Loitering,' contains a single operative section. 010 makes it unlawful for any person to stand or loiter in or about the doorway of any building, whether public or private, in a manner that obstructs ingress or egress to or from that building. The same section separately bans standing or loitering along or upon any public street, sidewalk, or in any alley in a manner that obstructs or interferes with traffic, and it extends to parking or standing a vehicle upon, across or along a street, sidewalk or alley in a way that creates the same obstruction.

Unlike many of Thurston County's animal or noise infractions, which are civil infractions carrying only a fine, a loitering violation is a gross misdemeanor, Thurston County's most serious misdemeanor tier: a conviction carries up to six months in the county jail, a fine of up to five hundred dollars, or both. The ordinance dates to Ordinance 3771 § 1, adopted in 1968, and it has not been substantively rewritten since; it sits in Title 10 alongside the county's resisting-arrest and disorderly-conduct provisions rather than in a separate trespass or vagrancy statute.

Because the section requires an actual obstruction of ingress, egress or traffic, mere presence on a sidewalk or in a doorway is not itself a violation; the obstruction of a specific passage or of vehicular or pedestrian traffic is the element that separates lawful standing from a chargeable loitering offense.