Pasadena, CA Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Chapter 13.08, the city's Energy Use Conservation ordinance dating to a 1974 energy-shortage measure, starts from a blanket prohibition: Section 13.08.010 makes it unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation to use electrical energy 'at any time' for lighting billboards, signs, advertising displays, building floodlighting, or decorative and architectural lighting. Section 13.08.020 then carves out the operative exception that actually governs day-to-day billboard operation: each billboard 'may be illuminated between the hours of sunset and 10:30 p.m.,' the same section that lets business window and display lighting run until half an hour after closing or 10:30 p.m., whichever is later.

If the city ever suspends Section 13.08.020, the fallback in Section 13.08.030 keeps the identical sunset-to-10:30-p.m. billboard window in place while cutting business signage down to one illuminated outdoor sign instead of two. Property owners get no separate variance process; the only carve-out for continuous lighting anywhere in the chapter, Section 13.08.050, covers minimum lighting necessary for public safety or security, or lighting required by law for essential police, fire, or health facilities, and does not extend to billboard faces. The Board of Directors of Pasadena Water and Power holds the power to activate or lift these restrictions: Section 13.08.140 lets the board suspend the whole chapter, or any part of it, by resolution whenever it decides that's in the public interest, meaning the sunset-to-10:30 curfew is the default rule until the board says otherwise.