Madera, CA Special Events & Permits: Park Event Permits (2026)

Madera Municipal Code Section 4-4.06, titled Reserved Areas in Parks, makes it unlawful for any person to interfere with, or refuse to vacate, any part of a city park that is reserved by permit for the use of another person or group at the time. The section dates to Ordinance 458 C.S., passed July 16, 1986, and sits in the same curfew-and-parks chapter as the after-hours use permit at Section 4-4.05, which is issued by the Police Chief on written application. Elsewhere in the code, the city's practice of renting park facilities under permit is documented directly: Section 4-2.02(A)'s intoxicating-liquor exception describes the Rotary Public Park Picnic Pavilion being rented to a specific group that has obtained a rental permit and paid both a permit fee and a security deposit, showing the reservation system in Section 4-4.06 operates alongside a real fee-and-deposit rental structure for at least one named city facility.

Unlike the neighboring park curfew provision, Section 4-4.06 does not itself label a violation a misdemeanor. Under the code's general penalty section, Section 1-2.01(C), city ordinance violations enacted or amended after June 1, 1981 default to infractions under Cal. Gov't Code Section 36900 unless the amending ordinance specifically designates a misdemeanor; because Ordinance 458 C.S. (1986) did not make that designation for Section 4-4.06, interfering with a reserved park area is punishable as an infraction rather than the misdemeanor that applies to curfew or public-alcohol violations in the same chapter.