Waynesville, MO Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

Waynesville's outdoor lighting section, § 405.667, exists to keep light spill from bothering night-training exercises at Fort Leonard Wood, so it caps trespass light at 1.5 foot-candles at a residential property line, requires full-cutoff shielding on any commercial fixture over 2 foot-candles, and makes most businesses switch off lighting above 2 foot-candles by 11:00 P.M. The section then lists narrow exemptions from all of that, and decorative holiday lighting from November 15 through the next January 15 is one of them, sitting alongside exemptions for combustion-fueled lighting, law-enforcement and emergency lighting, and lighting required by law on vehicles or aircraft.

Inside that roughly two-month window, a home or business can string up holiday lights without meeting the foot-candle ceilings, the full-cutoff fixture standard, or the 11:00 P.M. shutoff that apply the rest of the year. Anyone who wants exterior lighting outside the enumerated exemptions and outside the holiday window can ask the City Administrator for a temporary electrical permit, good for up to 30 days, with at least 30 days required to pass before another permit can be issued for the same site. Because § 405.667 sits inside Chapter 405's zoning regulations, running lighting that falls outside both the standing rules and the holiday exemption is punished as a zoning misdemeanor under § 405.740: a fine of $10 to $100, up to 20 days in jail, or both, with each day counted separately.

The City Administrator administers the section day to day, and the City Council can grant a special exception for a lighting design that does not meet the letter of the code but still serves its intent.