Tulare County, CA Public Conduct: Loitering Rules (2026)

Section 2-01-1000 sits in Part 2, Chapter 1 of the Ordinance Code, 'Use of Public Streets, Sidewalks and Other Public Places,' and it is one of the county's older public-conduct rules: it makes it unlawful to loiter, stand or sit in or at the entrance to any church, hall, theater or other place of public assemblage so as to obstruct the entrance in any manner. The prohibition is entrance-specific: it targets blocking access to a building's doorway, not merely being present nearby, and it names churches, halls and theaters along with any other place where the public assembles.

Like every provision in this chapter, it reaches only the unincorporated area of Tulare County; the incorporated cities of Visalia, Tulare, Porterville, Dinuba and the county's other cities each administer separate municipal codes, so an address inside any of those city limits is governed by that city's police power, not this county section. The Ordinance Code's general definitions section, 145(c), defines 'County' as 'the County of Tulare or the unincorporated territory within the County of Tulare, as the text may require,' which is how the code signals this unincorporated-only reach without repeating it in every chapter.

Chapter 1's companion sections regulate related public-place conduct: section 2-01-1005 requires a Board of Supervisors permit for parades and processions on any public highway, and section 2-01-1010 requires the same kind of permit for public assemblages, speeches or debates that would hinder passage on a highway, alley, sidewalk or crosswalk. Section 2-01-1000 itself carries no permit or exception process because it is a flat entrance-blocking prohibition rather than a licensed activity.