Montebello, CA Noise Ordinances: Decibel Limits (2026)

Montebello Municipal Code Section 17.22.110 sets the noise standard for every use in the city's commercial zones, measured at the lot line of the property where the noise-generating use is located. Subsection A(1)'s table caps daytime noise, seven a.m. to ten p.m., at sixty-five dBA where the adjacent zone is residential, seventy dBA where it is commercial, and seventy-five dBA where it is industrial; nighttime limits, ten p.m. to seven a.m., drop the residential-adjacent cap to sixty dBA while the commercial and industrial caps stay at seventy and seventy-five dBA respectively.

Subsection A(2) layers a stricter rule onto uses specifically in the C-R and C-1 zones when they sit next to a residential zone: those uses cannot exceed sixty dBA between seven a.m. and nine p.m., or fifty-five dBA between ten p.m. and seven a.m., a full five decibels tighter than the general commercial standard and with a shorter evening cutoff. Subsection B adds a cumulative-exceedance schedule that lets a use go louder than the base standard only briefly: no more than thirty minutes per hour at the standard itself, fifteen minutes per hour at five dBA over, five minutes per hour at ten dBA over, one minute per hour at fifteen dBA over, and any duration at twenty dBA over is prohibited outright.

Subsection C treats a fluctuating noise source, such as live or recorded music, by its peak reading for the whole cumulative period, and counts the gaps between repetitive banging, pounding or hammering as part of the noise's cumulative duration, closing an obvious loophole for intermittent construction-type noise.