Boca Raton, FL Special Events & Permits: Block Party Permits (2026)

Section 8-160 requires anyone who wants to conduct a special event, or to solicit charitable funds or donations, to first obtain a special event permit and pay the fee set in the Boca Raton Municipal Facilities and Services User Fee Schedule. The ordinance defines 'special event' broadly: any meeting, activity, gathering, or group of persons, animals or vehicles with a common purpose that substantially inhibits the usual flow of pedestrian or vehicular traffic on a public facility, street, sidewalk, alley or park, or that occupies a publicly open area or building and preempts its use by the public.

The code lists festivals, carnivals, concerts, parades, walks, races and fund-raising sales as examples, sweeping in neighborhood block parties that close a street to normal traffic. Section 8-161 requires anyone soliciting funds under a permit to supply, for the city's permanent records, their name, age, how long they have worked for the charity they represent, and written evidence of current employment with that organization; a new or unfamiliar charity must also disclose where it was organized, its headquarters location, its purpose in soliciting, and whether any government body oversees how the donations it collects are spent. Section 8-162 routes every permit application to the business taxing authority, which grants or denies the permit based on the submitted information.