Lake County, CA Sign Regulations: Window Signs (2026)

Lake County's Zoning Ordinance does not set a percentage-of-glass cap for temporary sale signs; instead, Section 21-45.3(r) exempts them from the sign-permit and area-limit system altogether by defining the exemption around material, placement and duration. To qualify, the sign must be painted directly onto the window glass or made of paper, cloth or similar expendable material, must be affixed only to the interior window surface (not free-standing or projecting), must be up for only a short period of time, and must promote a particular sale of products or merchandise rather than serve as permanent identification.

Because it falls under Section 45.3's list of permitted special-purpose signs, a qualifying window sign does not count toward the numeric sign-area limits in Sections 45.11 and 45.12 that apply to a business's permanent signage, such as the C1 district's cap of one-half square foot per foot of occupancy frontage or the 400-square-foot ceiling on total signage per occupancy in most commercial districts. A window sign that stays up indefinitely, is professionally fabricated rather than paper or paint, or otherwise reads as permanent signage loses the temporary-sign exemption and instead gets measured under the standard sign-area computation in Section 45.2(t), counting against the district's overall sign allowance.

The exemption applies in every base zoning district, with the same Section 45.23 carve-out for the Scenic Combining District that governs the rest of Section 45.3.