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

Sunnyvale Municipal Code § 19.42.030(c)(3), part of Chapter 19.42's Operating Standards, pulls delivery noise out of the general operational-noise limits and regulates it as a flat time-of-day prohibition instead. Nighttime is defined at § 19.12.150(5) as the period from ten p.m. to seven a.m. daily, and during those hours it is unlawful to make or allow a delivery to a commercial or industrial establishment whose loading or unloading area is adjacent to a residential use. The rule applies regardless of decibel level: a truck idling, backing up, or unloading pallets at 11 p.m. next to housing violates the section even if it never crosses the dBA limits set for daytime deliveries under subsections (a) and (b).

The city grandfathered businesses that were legally operating at their location before February 1, 1995, exempting them from the nighttime delivery ban, but any business that began operating after that date at a site next to residential use must schedule deliveries between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. Construction-related noise is governed separately under Title 16 and is not affected by this rule. Because subsection (c) treats delivery noise as categorically different from operational noise, a business cannot point to compliance with the property-line dBA limits in subsection (a) or (b) as a defense to a nighttime-delivery citation; the two provisions are enforced independently.