La Habra, CA Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

La Habra Municipal Code Chapter 18.44 governs the SP-1 La Habra Boulevard Specific Plan zone along the city's commercial corridor. Section 18.44.050(C) sets detailed sign standards there, including wall-sign size caps tied to lineal footage of store frontage, a twelve-foot height limit for pedestrian-oriented signage, and a ban on moving, animated, or new roof signs and billboards. Subsection C.10 carves out a list of sign types exempt from those standards and from the underlying permit process, covering government signs, utility signs, one construction sign up to forty square feet, and temporary real estate signs up to twenty square feet.

Item C.10.f addresses holiday decorative signs painted directly on windows: they are allowed without a sign permit, but the exemption is time-limited. General holiday window signs must be removed within ten days after the holiday they mark, while Christmas signs face a fixed calendar deadline of January 15th regardless of how many days that is after December 25th. The chapter's broader sign scheme is administered through the planning department and, for larger projects, the design review board and planning commission under Section 18.44.050(F), with enforcement running through the city's general nuisance and code-enforcement authority for signage left up past its removal window.

Because this rule sits inside the specific plan chapter rather than the citywide sign code, it applies specifically to properties within the La Habra Boulevard corridor rather than every commercial parcel citywide, so a business outside that specific plan area should check the general commercial sign chapter for its own removal timelines.