Pacifica, CA Noise from Specific Sources: Delivery Truck Noise (2026)

Section 5-10.03's enumerated noises include two provisions that reach delivery and collection trucks directly. Subsection (i) makes it a violation to create loud and excessive noise while loading or unloading any vehicle, or while opening and destroying bales, boxes, crates and containers, which covers the banging and dropping noise of commercial deliveries regardless of the hour. Subsection (p) targets the collection of solid waste specifically, meaning garbage, refuse, rubbish and recyclable materials, by a duly authorized solid waste franchise operator, and confines that collection to the hours of 5:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

The section allows the City Manager to grant a written exception to those hours in an urgent necessity affecting public health, safety or welfare, for the duration of the emergency, and separately lets the City Manager authorize overnight collection, between 8:00 p.m. and 5:30 a.m., if it is determined that public health, safety or welfare will not be impaired and that the later hours are needed for efficient, economical collection. Because Pacifica contracts solid waste collection through a franchise system, only the franchise operator's trucks fall under subsection (p)'s specific hours; a general commercial delivery truck outside that franchise is instead covered by subsection (i)'s loading-noise rule and the catchall prohibition in Section 5-10.02, which applies to any loud, disturbing or unusual noise not otherwise enumerated.