Mountain View, CA Special Events & Permits: Street Fair Rules (2026)

City Code Sec. 15.28 requires organizers to obtain a temporary use permit under Sec. 36.46 of the Zoning Code before holding any 'special event' as defined in Sec. 15.12. A special event is defined narrowly: it is any gathering, other than one on a street or sidewalk, held on an individual property where four or more mobile vendors operate at the same time, or where total mobile vending on that property runs more than four hours in any 24-hour period. That threshold sweeps in church festivals, shopping-center food-truck rallies, and multi-vendor pop-ups on private lots, distinguishing them from a single food truck parked at one business for an afternoon.

Sec. 15.27 layers on additional requirements once an event is city-sponsored or approved: vending on public property within the event footprint is allowed only with the sponsoring organization's permission, since it is that organization, not individual vendors, that holds the city's special event permit. Mobile food vendors at a sponsored or approved event must also separately register with and obtain a permit from the county environmental health services division for each food booth or individual food seller, on top of any city permit, and must follow every licensing, cleanup, and health and safety rule elsewhere in the code and under state and federal law.

Because the temporary use permit runs through the zoning process at Sec. 36.46, organizers need enough lead time for city review before the event date; the ordinary mobile vendor permit process under Sec. 15.15 does not substitute for it once an event crosses the four-vendor or four-hour threshold. A vendor who shows up to a qualifying event without the organizer having secured the Sec. 15.28 permit is still separately bound by their own mobile vendor permit obligations under Chapter 15.