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

Tustin City Code § 6900 explains that Chapter 9's alarm rules were adopted under Business and Professions Code § 7592.8 to reduce false burglary and robbery alarm calls to the Police Department and to recover the Police Department's response costs through fees. Section 6901(5) defines an 'audible alarm' generally as a device that emits sound to alert others of unauthorized entry or a robbery, a definition broad enough to cover a car alarm. Section 6902, however, carves out three categories from the entire chapter, and the first is audible alarms affixed to automobiles, unless the vehicle alarm is connected to a central monitoring system.

That exemption means an ordinary factory or aftermarket car alarm that simply sounds a horn or siren does not require the alarm user permit that Section 6910 otherwise mandates for alarm systems in the City, and its false activations are not counted toward the 'excessive false alarm' response fees that Section 6914 imposes on permitted alarm users after three false burglary alarms in a year. A car alarm loses that exemption only if it is wired to a central monitoring service that would dispatch or notify police, at which point it becomes subject to the full permitting and false-alarm-fee scheme like a home or business burglar alarm.

The Tustin Police Department administers Chapter 9 under Section 6909, and separate automatic shutoff requirements in Section 6904 apply to structural alarm systems, not to vehicle alarms, since vehicles are outside that section's residential/commercial framework.