Lacey, WA Garage & Yard Sales: Frequency, Duration & Permits (2026)

Chapter 5.34 of the Lacey Municipal Code caps garage sales in the City of Lacey by count and by length. Section 5.34.030 allows no more than four garage sales at any one location during a calendar year, and the length of each sale cannot exceed four consecutive days.

What counts as a garage sale is set by § 5.34.010. The term includes yard sales, patio sales, rummage sales, or other similar sales of twenty or more miscellaneous used household items that are advertised for the general public to attend. New handcrafted items made by the sponsor of the sale are outside the definition. The zoning code's home occupation definition adds that conducting a garage sale is not a home occupation and refers to Chapter 5.34 LMC.

Display and access rules also sit in § 5.34.030. Goods displayed in any garage sale cannot be displayed in the public right-of-way. All merchandise must be arranged so that fire, police, health or other officials have access for inspection at all times during the sale.

Signs are the part residents most often get wrong. Section 5.34.030 still points to LMC 16.75.110(A)(9), but that section now covers legal nonconforming signs. The garage sale sign rule sits in § 16.75.100(J). No sign permit is required. A sale gets one sign on the premises and three off-premises signs, and no sign can exceed four square feet in sign area. Signs go up only during the sale and must be removed the day the sale ends, and the person for whom the signs are displayed is responsible for removal. Under § 16.75.120(B)(3), an unlawful temporary sign on private property that is not removed twenty-four hours after notification can be removed by the city, and the owner reclaims it only after paying a civil penalty of $100.00.