Folsom, CA Filming & Production: Production Noise (2026)

Section 5.80.080 gives the city manager broad authority to condition a film permit on 'the time, place and manner' of a production. Two of the listed conditions target noise directly: subsection (J) allows 'restrictions on noise level from production activity,' and subsection (F) allows 'restrictions on the use of intense lighting equipment, generators, gunfire, explosions or other noise-creating or hazardous devices.' The city manager can also require the presence of Folsom police, fire, utilities, parks and recreation, or public works staff at the applicant's expense when a production's scale or equipment, like pyrotechnics or amplified sound, warrants it (subsection (A)), and can require notice to residents and businesses within three hundred feet of the shoot, or farther if the activity warrants it (subsection (L)).

These conditions are set on a permit-by-permit basis rather than as a fixed decibel table; the city manager tailors them to each production's equipment, location, and hours after department review under Section 5.80.070. A separate protection runs the other direction: Section 5.80.170 makes it a misdemeanor for a bystander, after being warned by a peace officer, to disrupt a permitted production by intentionally creating audible interference with the recording of sound. Producers also remain independently bound by the city's general noise ordinance in Chapter 8.42, and by restrictions on hours of production activity that the city manager can impose under Section 5.80.080(I).