Waukegan, IL Outdoor Cooking: BBQ & Propane Rules (2026)

Section 10-8 bans open burning of leaves, brush, paper, garbage, refuse or other combustible material anywhere in the city, enforced by the Waukegan Fire Department, but Section 15-26 carves out everyday backyard cooking. Subsection (a) exempts 'fires in outdoor grills designed and used for cooking food and utilizing natural or propane gas, charcoal, or other commercially available fuel intended for use in outdoor grills' with no stated distance-from-property-line or supervision requirement, unlike the neighboring exemption in subsection (b) for outdoor fireplaces and fire pits. That fire-pit exemption imposes a five-foot setback for portable units (ten feet if the base is embedded in the ground), requires a noncombustible surface, limits fuel to charcoal, gas, commercial fire logs or dry firewood, and requires adult supervision at all times the fire burns; none of those conditions is written into the grill exemption itself.

Subsection (c) gives the fire chief or a designee authority to order any burning, including grill use, extinguished if it becomes a documented nuisance from smoke, or is hazardous given weather or local conditions, or affects a resident with a documented medical condition. Separately, Section 11-42(h) bans grilling on the sand or in the dunes at the Waukegan Municipal Beach, permitting charcoal grilling only in the designated grass picnic areas next to the parking lots and inside Stiner Pavilion.