Yuba County, CA Sidewalk & Pedestrian Rules: Obstruction Rules (2026)

Yuba County Code § 8.40.020 makes it unlawful to loiter, stand, or sit in or upon any public highway, alley, sidewalk or crosswalk in unincorporated Yuba County so as to hinder or obstruct the free passage of persons or vehicles, or to annoy or molest people passing along it. Chapter 8.40, adopted by Ordinance No. 230 and titled 'Seditious or Obscene Language, Obstruction of Public Way, Picketing, Etc.,' also reaches the approach to a public building: § 8.40.030 separately bars loitering, standing or sitting at the entrance of, or approach to, any church, hall, theatre, park or place of public assemblage so as to obstruct that entrance or approach.

The Chapter cross-references Penal Code § 647, the state disorderly-conduct statute, as its underlying state-law analogue. The same Chapter also regulates related public-way conduct: § 8.40.010 makes it unlawful to utter seditious language reasonably foreseeable to provoke a breach of the peace, and §§ 8.40.040 through 8.40.080 restrict beset-and-picket conduct tied to compulsion, coercion, intimidation, threats, or violence against employees, employers, or patrons. None of that displaces the sidewalk-blocking rule in § 8.40.020, which applies regardless of the reason for the obstruction. Section 8.40.100 carves out an express exception: nothing in the Chapter prohibits peaceable picketing or lawful attempts by labor to achieve its aims through peaceable means, including collective bargaining, so a peaceful, non-obstructive picket line does not itself violate § 8.40.020.