Butte County, CA Noise Ordinances: Amplified Music & Outdoor Sound (2026)

'Sound truck' means any motor vehicle, or horse-drawn vehicle, with sound amplifying equipment mounted on or attached to it, and 'sound amplifying equipment' covers any device that amplifies voice, music or other sound, excluding a car's own factory radio heard only by its occupants and emergency-vehicle warning devices (Sec. 14-3). Before running one for noncommercial purposes anywhere in the unincorporated county, the operator must file a registration statement with the Sheriff in duplicate giving the owner's and operator's names and addresses, the vehicle's license and motor numbers, the purpose and proposed hours and days of use, the area of the county covered, and the amplifying equipment's wattage, decibel output and maximum throw distance, and must amend that statement within forty-eight hours of any change (Sec.

14-4(a), (b)). The Sheriff issues a certified copy the operator must keep in the truck and show to any officer on request (Sec. 14-4(c)). m. The truck must keep moving at ten miles per hour or faster except when stopped by traffic, and even then the equipment can run for no more than one minute per stop. No sound may be broadcast within one hundred yards of a hospital, school, church or courthouse, content cannot be profane, lewd, indecent or slanderous, and the volume must stay inaudible beyond one hundred feet from the truck and not unreasonably loud, raucous, jarring or disturbing.

The amplifying equipment itself cannot exceed fifteen watts of power in its last stage of amplification (Sec. 14-4(d)). Commercial advertising use instead requires a two-dollar-fifty-cent license issued by the Sheriff, subject to the same operating limits (Sec. 14-5).