Pico Rivera, CA Noise from Specific Sources: Car Alarm Limits (2026)

Section 8.28.090 states plainly that the provisions of this chapter are not applicable to audible alarms affixed to motor vehicles. That single sentence removes car alarms from every operative rule elsewhere in Chapter 8.28: the requirement that an audible alarm owner post repair contacts and automatically reset within thirty minutes under Section 8.28.050, the three-false-alarms-per-twelve-months cap in Section 8.28.080, and the misdemeanor penalty of up to a $500 fine or six months in county jail under Section 8.28.110. Those provisions were written for burglar and holdup alarms on buildings, which the city council found in Section 8.28.020 waste law enforcement time when they go off falsely; a factory car alarm going off in a parking lot does not trigger any of that machinery.

Instead, a vehicle alarm that keeps ringing is addressed, if at all, under Section 8.40.010 of the separate Noise chapter, which bars unnecessary noises or sounds physically annoying to persons of ordinary sensitiveness, or so harsh, prolonged, unnatural or unusual as to occasion physical discomfort to the inhabitants of any neighborhood. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which staffs the Pico Rivera Station under contract, responds to both alarm complaints and general noise nuisance calls; there is no separate alarm-permit desk for vehicle alarms in the code. Because there is no vehicle-specific decibel limit, duration cap, or registration fee, enforcement is discretionary rather than automatic.