Laguna Niguel, CA Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

Section 9-1-74(j) exempts temporary holiday window displays from the sign permit process that otherwise applies to signage citywide. To qualify, the display has to be 'incidental to and customarily associated' with an official state or federal holiday, and it cannot advertise the business name or its products, which is what separates a holiday decoration from a disguised advertising sign. The ordinance singles out one lighting effect for extra restriction: animated 'chase' lights, the kind that create a moving pattern, are permitted only during the month of December and only in connection with Christmas, so a business can't run chase-light displays for other holidays or outside that single month.

Outside the window-display context, Section 9-1-35.15(i) separately allows residential properties to put up lighting and decorations tied to a specific holiday period, while requiring that any decorative lighting not connected to a holiday period avoid flashing, blinking, or moving so it doesn't draw undue attention. The general prohibition in Section 9-1-77(24) on unshielded light bulbs and open-bulb festoons for exterior displays specifically carves out an exception for temporary decorative holiday lighting and holiday displays, so seasonal string lights on a house or storefront are not swept into that citywide ban the way a permanent strand of exposed bulbs would be.