Mississippi Code
Miss. Code Ann. § 97-23-17 (2026)
Customers, patrons or clients; right to choose or refuse to serve; penalty for violation
✓ current as of July 2026
- (1) Every person, firm or corporation engaged in any public business, trade or profession of any kind whatsoever in the State of Mississippi, including, but not restricted to, hotels, motels, tourist courts, lodging houses, restaurants, dining room or lunch counters, barber shops, beauty parlors, theatres, moving picture shows, or other places of entertainment and amusement, including public parks and swimming pools, stores of any kind wherein merchandise is offered for sale, is hereby authorized and empowered to choose or select the person or persons he or it desires to do business with, and is further authorized and empowered to refuse to sell to, wait upon or serve any person that the owner, manager or employee of such public place of business does not desire to sell to, wait upon or serve. The provisions of this section shall not apply to corporations or associations engaged in the business of selling electricity, natural gas, or water to the general public, or furnishing telephone service to the public.
- (2) Any public place of business may, if it so desires, display a sign posted in said place of business serving notice upon the general public that "the management reserves the right to refuse to sell to, wait upon or serve any person," however, the display of such a sign shall not be a prerequisite to exercising the authority conferred by this section.
- (3) Any person who enters a public place of business in this state, or upon the premises thereof, and is requested or ordered to leave therefrom by the owner, manager or any employee thereof, and after having been so requested or ordered to leave, refuses so to do, shall be guilty of a trespass and upon conviction therefor shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars ($500.00) or imprisoned in jail not more than six (6) months, or both such fine and imprisonment.
Codes, 1942, § 2046.5; Laws, 1956, ch. 257, §§ 1-3.
Notes of Decisions
Cited in 2
cases, 2006–2016 · leading case: Lee v. MGM Resorts Mississippi, Inc., 200 So. 3d 1129 (Miss. Ct. App. 2016).
Lee v. MGM Resorts Mississippi, Inc., 200 So. 3d 1129 (Miss. Ct. App. 2016). “1995); Miss.Code Ann. § 97-23-17 (Rev.2014); see also Higgenbotham v.”
Bates v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 413 F. Supp. 2d 763 (S.D. Miss. 2006). “Holding Mississippi statute, 7 Miss.Code Ann. § 97-23-17, grants Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.”
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