Lake Elsinore, CA Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

Holiday window decorations sit inside LEMC § 17.196.160(F), the City's carve-out for temporary window signs, which lets them go up without the temporary sign permit that Chapter 17.196 otherwise requires for pennants, banners, flags and inflatable devices under the rest of § 17.196.160. Subsection (F)(1) caps ordinary window signage at 25 percent of the window's area, and subsection (F)(2) adds the separate holiday rule: a decoration may go up no more than six weeks before the holiday it marks and must come down within two weeks after that holiday passes.

Because the display is permit-exempt, there is no City approval step to trigger before the window goes up, unlike the Planning Division review required for banners, flags and movable sandwich-board signs under the rest of the section. The exemption is specific to windows: a display that spills onto the building's exterior wall, a freestanding yard sign, or a temporary sign type not covered by subsection (F) still needs its own permit under the chapter's general rules. The Building Division retains its usual stop-order power over any temporary sign, including a holiday window display kept up past its allowed window, since § 17.196.050 lets the City halt the installation or continuation of any sign carried out in violation of the sign title.