Nash County, NC Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

4 of the UDO lists the sign types prohibited anywhere in the Nash County planning and zoning jurisdiction. Subsection (C) bans strings of light bulbs used in connection with commercial premises for commercial purposes, a rule aimed at strip-lighting used to draw attention to a business or lot. The same subsection excludes traditional holiday decorations, during the appropriate holiday period, from that ban, so seasonal light strings on a business are not a prohibited sign the way year-round attention-getting string lighting is. 3, spells out which sign types skip the permit and fee requirements that apply to signs generally under Section 11-1; both exempt and non-exempt signs still have to meet the county's placement, dimensional and NCDOT sight-distance clearance rules, and any exempt sign found to be a hazard can be ordered corrected or removed.

4(A) and (B), which otherwise ban lights that flash, move, rotate, blink or vary in color, except for time/temperature/date signs, barber poles and electronically controlled message signs. In practice this means holiday string lights, including blinking or color-changing strands, are allowed on a commercial building during the holiday season even though the same lighting would be a prohibited animated or flashing sign the rest of the year.