Salinas, CA Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

Sec. 580 lists the categories of signage the city exempts from needing a sign permit; subsection (r) covers holiday lights and displays specifically. To qualify, the display cannot advertise a product or an on-site sale, meaning it must be purely decorative and seasonal rather than a marketing tool disguised as holiday decor. The exemption also runs on a strict calendar: lights and displays cannot go up any sooner than forty-five days before the holiday they celebrate, and they have to come down within fourteen days after the holiday passes.

640, which means it would need a sign permit and would have to meet the same height, area, and location limits that apply to any other non-exempt sign in that zoning district. The exemption sits alongside similar seasonal carve-outs in the same subsection, such as non-helium balloons for special events, capped at twenty days a year, and noncommercial election signs, limited to the run-up to an election, showing the city treats holiday decor as one of several narrow, time-boxed exceptions to its general permit requirement rather than a standing right to display lighted signage year-round.