Schenectady, NY Sign Regulations: Garage Sale Signs (2026)

Chapter 159, Garage Sales, was adopted by the City Council on December 9, 1980, by Ordinance No. 80-150, and it covers every sale of goods a resident acquired for personal use rather than for resale. Section 159-3 sets two distinct rules that apply on top of the separate permit, frequency and fee requirements in § 159-2: a sales-hours window and a sign-placement ban. , regardless of how many of the year's allotted three sales the seller is using or whether it is an individual sale or a neighborhood-wide sale under a not-for-profit association's permit.

The sign rule is a flat placement ban rather than a permit or size limit: no sign or other display advertising the sale may be attached, placed, painted or pasted on any public lamppost, electric, telegraph or telephone pole, shade tree, fire hydrant, sidewalk, curbstone, flagstone or crosswalk. The chapter does not set a separate size or wording limit for garage-sale signs placed on private property, so a sign in a seller's own yard is governed by the general sign rules elsewhere in the code rather than by Chapter 159.

Section 159-4 makes the person conducting the sale responsible for maintaining good order during the sale hours, and enforcement runs through the Director of Consumer Protection and police officers acting as special police officers under § 159-5B.