Rohnert Park, CA Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

050 exempts a list of sign types from the city's standard sign permit and sign program process, and subsection J covers temporary signs. 5, titled "Seasonal Decorations," is the specific rule for holiday lighting and displays: decorations and displays related to locally recognized holidays may go up as early as thirty days before the holiday and must come down no later than ten days after it. Because this sits in the exempt-signs section, a homeowner or business does not need to file a sign permit application with the development services department or pay a permit fee to hang string lights, wreaths, inflatables or similar seasonal decor during that window.

The exemption is time-limited by design: outside the thirty-days-before/ten-days-after window, the same lights or displays lose their exempt status. 020 makes clear this chapter reaches signs on private property in every zoning district citywide, plus signs on public rights-of-way and on property owned by other public agencies over which the city holds zoning authority, so the same thirty/ten-day window applies whether the display sits in a residential yard or on a commercial storefront. Note that Sonoma State University's campus and the Graton Resort and Casino sit outside city zoning jurisdiction (state land and federal trust land respectively), so this city rule does not reach decorations installed there.