Redondo Beach, CA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Section 10-2.1818 flatly prohibits 'Billboards' citywide, and subsection (c) separately bans animated signs of any kind, which sweeps in scrolling or flashing digital displays, except for barber poles, time-temperature signs, and the electric message display signs specifically permitted under Sections 10-2.1814 and 10-2.1815. Those two carve-outs are narrow by design. Section 10-2.1814 lets an LED electronic message display onto a site only if the property has a live performance theater seating at least 1,000 people or a school; the display cannot function as a billboard advertising off-site products, must sit inside a decorative structure no taller than 30 feet, is capped at 120 square feet per face for a theater or 60 square feet for a school, must show white text on a black background absent special approval, cannot flash (each message holds for at least eight seconds), and must go dark between midnight and 6:00 a.m., or 8:00 p.m. if it faces anything but a major arterial.

Section 10-2.1815 opens a second, geography-specific door: within the Harbor/Pier Special District along North Harbor Drive between Portofino Way and North Pacific Avenue, the City allows exactly one electronic message display sign with Harbor Commission Design Review, plus up to four static electronic directory signs no larger than four feet by six feet. Outside those two paths, and outside grandfathered structures, Article 8's nonconforming-sign rules force existing billboards out: Section 10-2.2006(b) requires removal of a nonconforming billboard on a change in illumination, structure, or use, if it is more than 90% destroyed, if its use lapses for a year, if the Chief Building Official calls it unsafe, or because the five-year amortization period the City set under Ordinance 2617 ran out on June 6, 1996.