Santa Maria, CA Parking Rules: Curb Color Rules (2026)

Adopted by Ordinance 98-10 in 1998, Chapter 4-17 targets door-to-door curb-painting businesses that solicit residents to pay for a house number stenciled on the street curb. 1 requires the painter to obtain the property owner's or occupant's prior written consent before inscribing any address or sign on a street, curb, sidewalk or right-of-way, and that written consent must itself record the contractor's name, street address, telephone number, and City business license number, creating a paper trail back to whoever did the work. 2 separately bars anyone from changing, erasing or altering an existing curb address without the identified property owner's prior consent, closing off a painter's ability to repaint over a competitor's existing work without permission.

3 confines any lawful address sign to "a portion of the curb abutting the property," so a contractor cannot paint an address sign anywhere else in the public right-of-way, such as the sidewalk in front of a different lot or a street corner. 4 exempts the United States, the State of California, and the City of Santa Maria, and their contractors, from the consent requirement when installing public signs of any nature, and confirms the chapter does not stop a property owner from personally painting their own street address on the curb abutting their own property.