Tucson, AZ Public Conduct: Loitering Rules (2026)

Tucson's loitering ordinance is narrow and scene-specific: it isn't a general vagrancy law but is confined to railroad property. Sec. 11-52, carried forward from 1953 Code ch. 18 § 43, makes it unlawful for any person other than a railroad employee to assemble, congregate, gather, or 'remain idly loitering' in or about a railroad freight depot, warehouse, or yard, or anywhere rail cars are being loaded, unloaded, repaired, or iced. The prohibition lifts only with the express permission of the railroad's owner or lessee in possession of the property.

A companion provision, Sec. 11-37, separately bars anyone under 18 from playing or loitering about a railroad depot, roundhouse, machine shop, or freight house, or riding a rail car, engine, or truck without consent; juvenile violators are handled under state juvenile procedure rather than the adult misdemeanor track. Sec. 11-52 carries no stated penalty of its own, so it falls under the Code's general penalty clause, Sec. 1-8: a fine of up to $2,500, imprisonment of up to six months, probation of up to 36 months in the city magistrate's discretion, or a combination, with each day of continuing violation charged as a separate offense.

A judge may substitute community service valued at $10 per hour toward the fine. Because the ordinance sits in Chapter 11's crimes-and-offenses article alongside other railroad-property rules (boarding or alighting from moving trains under Sec. 11-50, soliciting passengers at depots under Sec. 11-53), Tucson Police and railroad security typically enforce it as trespass-adjacent conduct near active rail yards and depots rather than as a general anti-loitering tool for streets or parks.