Lakewood, CA Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

Section 4328, Bird Feeding Nuisance, prohibits any person or property owner in a residential zone from placing or maintaining food or any substance that will attract birds, including pigeons, unless the birds being fed are owned by that person and are fed inside the walls of a building or within a cage, pen, bird house or loft outside one. The Code declares this conduct an unlawful public nuisance per se the moment a city enforcement officer observes and documents it on two or more separate days within any 30-day period, meaning a single sighting is not enough but a pattern over a month is.

The City Council relies on Government Code Section 38771 to treat the violation as a nuisance abatable under the Civil Code or Code of Civil Procedure, on top of any criminal penalty, so the City can order the feeding stopped through a civil abatement action rather than only prosecuting it. The ordinance, added by Ordinance 85-13 and amended twice in 2023 (Ord. 2023-6 and 2023-7), was written to curb pigeon flocks and rodent activity that open feeding attracts in Lakewood's dense postwar single-family neighborhoods, where yards sit close together.

It does not reach hummingbird feeders or any other bird feeder unless that particular feeder is itself creating a nuisance, so residents can still maintain ordinary backyard feeders for songbirds without violating the section.