Disorderly Conduct and Public Intoxication in Nashville
Disorderly conduct and public intoxication are not what their names suggest. Being loud is not disorderly conduct and being drunk in public is not public intoxication. Both statutes require more.
Both Charges Require an Element People Do Not Know About
Disorderly conduct under § 39-17-305 requires acting in a public place "with intent to cause public annoyance or alarm." Public intoxication under § 39-17-310 requires being under the influence "to the degree that" somebody is endangered or people nearby are unreasonably annoyed. Both are Class C misdemeanors.
A Class C misdemeanor is the lowest grade Tennessee has, and it is still a criminal conviction that shows up on a background check for the rest of your life. That combination, low stakes on paper and permanent in practice, is exactly why disorderly conduct and public intoxication get pleaded out without anyone reading what the State would have had to prove.
Disorderly Conduct Has Three Requirements, Not One
Subsection (a) reaches a person who, "in a public place and with intent to cause public annoyance or alarm," does one of three things. Public place, that specific intent, and a listed act. Take away any one of the three and the subsection is not met.
The three acts are:
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Fighting, or violent or threatening behavior
The statute says "engages in fighting or in violent or threatening behavior." Arguing loudly is not on the list.
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Refusing an order to disperse, in narrow circumstances
This is the one most often misdescribed. The statute reaches refusal to obey "an official order to disperse issued to maintain public safety in dangerous proximity to a fire, hazard or other emergency." Not any instruction from an officer, and not general crowd control. There has to be a fire, a hazard or an emergency, and dangerous proximity to it.
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Creating a hazardous or physically offensive condition
"By any act that serves no legitimate purpose." The no-legitimate-purpose clause is part of the element rather than commentary on it.
Subsection (b) is a separate route to the same offense and reads differently. It reaches a person "who makes unreasonable noise that prevents others from carrying on lawful activities." Preventing, not merely bothering. On a street built around amplified live music, what counts as unreasonable noise that prevents lawful activity is a genuine question rather than an obvious one.
Being Drunk in Public Is Not Public Intoxication
The offense is committed by a person who appears in a public place under the influence of "a controlled substance, controlled substance analogue or any other intoxicating substance to the degree that" one of three things is true: the offender may be endangered, there is endangerment to other persons or property, or the offender unreasonably annoys people in the vicinity.
The words to the degree that are doing the work. Intoxication alone is not the offense, however visible it is. The statute requires the intoxication to have reached a level that produces one of those three consequences, and which one the State is relying on is a fair question to ask of any such charge.
This is the opposite of what most writing on the subject says, including the page this one replaces, which told readers that simply being visibly impaired in a way an officer deems unsafe is enough. It is a reasonable description of how arrests sometimes happen. It is not a description of the statute, and the difference between those two things is the entire value of knowing what the charge requires.
Public Place Reaches Further Than the Street
Section 39-11-106(a)(32) defines a public place as "a place to which the public or a group of persons has access", expressly including "places of amusement ... places of business ... and hallways, lobbies and other portions of apartment houses and hotels not constituting rooms or apartments designed for actual residence."
A honky-tonk is a place of business and a place of amusement. A hotel lobby is named in the definition. The corridor outside a hotel room is a public place; the room itself is not. Visitors who assume they got somewhere private when they came in off the street are often surprised by where that line actually sits.
Blocking the Sidewalk Is a More Serious Charge Than Either of These
Section 39-17-307 makes it an offense to, without legal privilege, intentionally, knowingly or recklessly obstruct "a highway, street, sidewalk, railway, waterway, elevator, aisle, or hallway to which the public, or a substantial portion of the public, has access." That is a Class A misdemeanor, two full grades above disorderly conduct.
| Offense | Section | Class and ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| Disorderly conduct | § 39-17-305 | Class C, 30 days, $50 |
| Public intoxication | § 39-17-310 | Class C, 30 days, $50 |
| Disobeying an officer's reasonable order to move | § 39-17-307(a)(2) | Class C, 30 days, $50 |
| Obstructing a street or sidewalk | § 39-17-307(a)(1) | Class A 11 months 29 days, $2,500 |
Note the split inside § 39-17-307. Refusing to move when asked is the Class C. Actually obstructing the passageway is the Class A. The statute also provides an enhancement to a Class E felony where the obstruction prevents emergency vehicle access, impedes first responders, or blocks emergency exits.
This matters on Lower Broadway specifically, where a crowd on a sidewalk outside a venue is the ordinary state of the world on a Friday night. If a charge arrives out of that situation, which section it was written under is worth checking before anything else, because the difference between a Class C and a Class A is the difference between thirty days and nearly a year of exposure.
Paying It to Make It Go Away Is a Conviction
A Class C misdemeanor is not a parking ticket. Resolving one by paying the fine and costs leaves a criminal conviction on the record, and a fifty dollar maximum fine makes that a very cheap way to acquire something permanent. For someone flying home on Sunday it is an enormously tempting trade, and it is the single most common way these cases go wrong.
The consequences that follow are not proportionate to the fine. Background checks for employment and housing do not grade offenses by class. Professional licensing boards do not either. Whether a conviction can later be cleared from the record depends on facts this page cannot know, and our expungement page covers how that process works.
These cases are heard in General Sessions, which has its own rules about what you give up to be heard that morning. Our post on General Sessions versus Criminal Court explains the waiver that gets signed and the ten day appeal that follows. If a resisting or evading count came with the charge, the resisting arrest post covers that one.
Disorderly Conduct and Public Intoxication FAQ
Can I be arrested just for being drunk on Broadway?
Section 39-17-310 requires being under the influence in a public place to the degree that the offender may be endangered, other persons or property are endangered, or the offender unreasonably annoys people in the vicinity. Intoxication by itself does not meet the statute.
Is being loud disorderly conduct in Tennessee?
Subsection (b) of § 39-17-305 reaches unreasonable noise "that prevents others from carrying on lawful activities." Preventing is the standard, not merely disturbing. Subsection (a) is separate and requires a public place, intent to cause public annoyance or alarm, and one of three listed acts.
Do I have to obey an order to disperse?
For disorderly conduct, the statute is narrow. It reaches refusal of an official order to disperse "issued to maintain public safety in dangerous proximity to a fire, hazard or other emergency." A separate statute, § 39-17-307(a)(2), makes disobeying a reasonable order to move a Class C misdemeanor in its own right.
What are the maximum penalties?
Both are Class C misdemeanors, which under § 40-35-111(e)(3) carry not greater than 30 days and a fine not to exceed $50. Obstructing a street or sidewalk under § 39-17-307(a)(1) is a Class A misdemeanor, up to 11 months 29 days and a fine not to exceed $2,500.
Is a hotel lobby a public place?
Yes. Section 39-11-106(a)(32) defines public place to include hallways, lobbies and other portions of hotels not constituting rooms designed for actual residence. The room is not a public place. The corridor outside it is.
I live out of state. Can I just pay the fine and go home?
Paying it resolves the case as a conviction rather than making it disappear. A Class C misdemeanor conviction appears on background checks the same as any other, and the low fine does not limit what follows from it.
Check Which Section It Was Written Under
Austin Tomlinson defends disorderly conduct, public intoxication and related charges in Davidson County, and takes every case himself. The section number on the citation decides what the State would have to prove and what the exposure actually is, so that is the first thing worth reading on it.