Westminster, CA Outdoor Cooking: Smoker Rules (2026)

There is no Westminster Municipal Code provision aimed at wood, pellet, or charcoal smokers, so they are treated as outdoor cooking devices under the California Fire Code, adopted in Municipal Code Chapter 15.22 and enforced for the city by the Orange County Fire Authority. At a detached single-family home, a resident may use an offset, pellet, kamado, or barrel smoker in the backyard without a permit, provided it is kept a safe distance from the house, fences, eaves, and other combustibles, is attended while in use, and has a means to control the fire. Because smokers commonly burn charcoal or wood and produce open flame and embers, they fall within California Fire Code section 308.1.4: charcoal and other open-flame cooking devices may not be operated on combustible balconies or within 10 feet of combustible construction, except in fully sprinklered buildings or on noncombustible balconies and patios. This effectively bars wood and charcoal smokers from typical apartment balconies. Electric smokers, which do not use an open flame, are less restricted but should still follow manufacturer clearances. Smokers run for many hours and produce sustained smoke, so the most common neighbor complaint is odor and smoke drift; in Westminster's dense residential setting, that can be enforced as a public nuisance under WMC Chapter 8.20 even when the device itself is legal.