Santa Barbara County, CA Parking Rules: Loading Zones (2026)

5. When the board of supervisors designates a stretch of a county road as a loading zone by resolution under Sec. 23-11, the road commissioner paints the curb yellow, and per Sec. on days other than Sundays and holidays. Within that window the loading itself is time-limited: passenger loading or unloading cannot run longer than three minutes, and loading or unloading of materials cannot run longer than twenty minutes, per the same subsection. Sec. 1. Outside the posted hours, or on Sundays and holidays, the yellow-zone time limit does not apply, though other parking rules on that stretch of road may still govern.

The zones exist only where the road commissioner has posted signs or painted curb markings giving notice; an unmarked stretch of road carries no loading-zone restriction, per Sec. 23-12. Adjacent to loading zones the county also designates white zones (passenger loading or mail drop-off, three-minute limit) and green zones (fifteen-, twenty-, or thirty-minute limit) under the same curb-marking system in Sec. 1, so a driver should check curb color before assuming loading-zone rules apply.