Pasco, WA Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

PMC 12.32.060 lists seven categories of lighting excluded from Chapter 12.32 PMC's outdoor lighting requirements, and subsection (7) names "private and commercial holiday lighting" outright. Because holiday lighting sits in this exclusions list, it falls outside the shielding standard of PMC 12.32.020, the approved-lighting-source requirement of PMC 12.32.030 (mercury or sodium vapor only), and the unlawful-acts curfew in PMC 12.32.040 that otherwise bars illuminating buildings or signs with light projected above the horizontal between midnight and sunrise. The same exclusions section also carves out fixtures existing before the ordinance, private residential incandescent illumination of 500 watts or less, gas-combustion light, neon/argon/krypton tube signs, internally illuminated translucent signs, and certain fluorescent lamps on file with the Building Inspector.

In practical terms, the code sets no duration, wattage, or shielding limit specific to holiday displays; homeowners and businesses stringing seasonal lights are not required to obtain the temporary exemption process under PMC 12.32.050 that other outdoor lighting installers must use, and the Building Inspector, who enforces the rest of the chapter under PMC 12.32.070, has no holiday-specific standard to apply. The general penalty of $300.00 per violation under PMC 12.32.080 therefore has no application to holiday lighting because the display is excluded from the chapter's substantive requirements in the first place.