Hawthorne, CA Sign Regulations: Political Signs (2026)

62, titled 'Unlawful Conduct: Political or Campaign Signs, Banners and the Like,' was added to the Hawthorne code by Ordinance 2254 on October 22, 2024. 030 defines a 'political or campaign sign' as any sign advocating the election of a specific candidate for public office or advocating a position on a ballot measure, and defines 'owner' broadly to include the campaign itself, anyone who bought the sign or received it as a gift, and anyone who agreed to let the sign be displayed on property they own or lawfully possess.

040(A) makes it a misdemeanor to unlawfully take, confiscate, possess, move, damage, deface or reuse a political or campaign sign or banner, or to direct someone else to do any of those things, without the owner's permission. Subsection B carves out four situations where the prohibition does not apply: law enforcement officers and local government officials acting officially, an authorized campaign representative acting within their official capacity, a private property owner who never consented to the sign's placement, and a person lawfully in possession of property who never gave permission for the sign to go up there in the first place.

Subsection C preserves the city's ability to separately prosecute the same conduct as theft or vandalism under other law. 020 states the ordinance's purpose directly: protecting political speech from being silenced by having its physical signage stolen or destroyed, treating that conduct as its own distinct misdemeanor rather than leaving it to general theft or vandalism statutes alone.