Tuscaloosa, AL Public Conduct: Loitering Rules (2026)

Tuscaloosa does not ban loitering citywide. Sec. 17-151 lets the chief of police, an assistant chief, or the ranking on-duty officer designate an area as overcrowded when pedestrian or vehicular traffic is substantially impaired by crowd density, or when routine patrol cannot protect public safety. Police must announce the designation with a public address system at least twice an hour and identify the boundary streets. The designation lasts until police lift it or until twelve hours pass, whichever comes first.

Once an area carries that designation, Sec. 17-152(c) authorizes officers to direct pedestrians to keep moving or to stop loitering. Sec. 17-153(b) then makes it an offense, after such a directive, to stand still, lean or sit on a building, sidewalk, curb or roadway, block pedestrian or vehicular traffic, stay in the area for any purpose other than patronizing an open business, or ignore the officer's directive. Sec. 17-153(a) separately bars physically blocking or harassing people entering or leaving a business, and Sec. 17-153(c) makes it an offense to fail to disperse or to return within four hours after police order a crowd to leave, generally invoked when overcrowding persists past 2:00 a.m. and threatens public safety.

Enforcement requires an officer's prior warning in every case; the ordinance does not criminalize loitering on an ordinary Tuscaloosa sidewalk that has not been designated overcrowded. Any offense under Sec. 17-153 carries a flat $100 fine plus court costs, and the article was last amended by Ord. No. 9124 in October 2021.