Lawton, OK Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

Section 18-9-1-906 lists 22 categories of prohibited signs citywide, and item 19 targets signs continuously outlined with individual light bulbs or a string of lights, including lights that outline property lines, sales areas, or any portion of a structure, whenever they are intended to advertise or draw attention to a business or commercial activity. That is the same enforcement tool the city uses against permanent strip-lighting stunts meant to draw customers year-round. Subsection 19(a) then exempts lights used temporarily as holiday decorations from that ban outright, and 19(b) adds a second exception for lights used temporarily at carnivals, fairs, or similar temporary events.

Neither exception carries a defined start or end date or a maximum wattage in the text; the operative word doing the work is 'temporarily,' which ties the display to the holiday season itself rather than to a fixed number of days. The same section separately bans flashing, blinking, or rotating lights as sign elements under item 9, but expressly allows flashing or blinking lights that are part of an electronic changeable message board, a carve-out that runs alongside, not through, the holiday-lighting exemption. Read together, the ordinance distinguishes a business using string lights as a year-round advertising gimmick, which item 19 prohibits, from a home or business stringing lights for the holidays, which 19(a) leaves alone.