Northern California
From the 50 State Visitor Guide:
Cal. Penal Code 2019 Effective July 1, 2021 §§290 through 294
Cal. Penal Code §§ 3003, 3003.5. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 6608.5
Registration Triggers and Deadlines:
All registrants must register within 5 working days of coming into the state. §290.011; updates also within 5 working days. §§290(b), 290.013. Those working in the state for 14 days or for more than 30 days in a calendar year must register. §290.002. Those who “regularly reside” at a temporary or permanent residence must register “regardless of the number of days or nights spent here.” §290.010.
Transients must reregister every 30 days. §290.011.
Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:
Presence restriction: Registrants may not enter schools without permission. §626.81. Parolees with convictions involving minors under 14 may not enter parks without permission. §3053.8. May not enter daycare or place for dependent adult if conviction involved dependent adult. §653c.
Residence restriction: 2,000 ft. of schools and parks. §3003.5(b). NOTE: this statute was declared unconstitutional as applied to certain parolees by In re Taylor, 60 Cal. 4th 1019 (2015) and is no longer being enforced by the state. However, local governments may enforce this statute or local ordinances.
Few local governments have more restrictive requirements, not because there is a state pre-emption but because ACSOL aggressively sues & overturns them.
Duration & updates:
Lifetime. Petition to remove: T1 – 10 yrs. T2 – 20 yrs. SVPs update every 90 days; all others update annually. §290.012.
NOTE: Per Rolfe Survey, visiting registrants are placed on state’s website and not removed. However, per ACSOL staff, procedure available for removal from registry after departure.
Most recent visit: September 2023
For registered visitors, California is better than some states but worse than others. All registrants must register within five working days of coming into the state. §290.011. Notice the statute says “within five working days,” so it’s clear that your fifth working day in California will trigger their registration requirement. So in reality you only get four working days. Also, as with most states, you should always assume that partial days count – so enter California in the morning and leave four working days later in the evening.
The good news is that weekends and holidays don’t count, so if you include a weekend you can extend your stay. Also, there appears to be no limit per month or year, so if you do include a weekend, and leave California for at least one full calendar day (and two nights) in mid-week, you can re-start the clock.
Another piece of good news is that it has very few local ordinances or regulations more restrictive than state law. However, in California’s case that’s not because they have any state pre-emption. Rather, it’s because ACSOL aggressively sues & overturns them. Therefore you can travel in California mostly without fear of unknowingly tripping over some local land mine.
In September 2023 I was present in Northern California for three full consecutive days and two partial days on either side, so you might wonder, that’s five days so how did I do that? Well, I entered the state on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, so my first partial day and full day didn’t count towards the total.
Entering California on U.S. 199 in the afternoon of Day 1, I found myself at the front of and a little line of cars that had to be escorted through the forest fire zone by a police car. It was kind of creepy. There was no stopping and everything in Smith River National Recreation Area was closed. However, upon reaching the seacoast, Redwood National Park and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park were both open and I was able to tour the Grove of Titans, the first of many giant tree groves I saw on this trip.
The bad news that day was that when I arrived at my reserved campsite in Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park the whole place was closed down on account of the fire. Retreating to the nearby tourist town of Crescent City I came upon a low rent RV Park where I spent Night 1.
Redwoods National Park and Humboldt Redwoods State Park
Day 2 was Labor Day. I traveled down the California seacoast and walked or drove through one impressive grove of giant trees after another, past one spectacular seacoast view after another. I and some other folks who happened to be at the right place at the right time also stopped to watch a herd of elk cross U.S. 101.
From Humboldt Redwoods State Park I backtracked to State Road 36 and traveled through Shasta-Trinity National Forest on my way to my next reserved campground. It was Labor Day evening.
Day 3 was my first business day in California, I was passing through Redding that morning, and I had several delayed items of business to take care of, so I spent most of this day doing laundry, correcting a banking error that my Florida property manager had made a few days earlier, picking up supplies and getting a long put off oil change.
That afternoon I was able to squeeze in a cave tour at nearby Lake Shasta Caverns. From the visitors center you go on a boat ride to and from the cave entrance. The tour is expensive but very nice and relatively unspoiled by human exploitation. From there I traveled east to find a campground in Lassen National Park.
Lassen Volcanic National Park and Lava Beds National Monument
Day 4 was Lava Day. First up, Lassen Volcanic National Park which consists of volcano mountains, steaming sulphur vents and bubbling mud. After taking that in it was a long uneventful drive to Lava Beds National Monument which more than makes up in massive beds of lava and spatter cones what it may lack in mud and steaming vents. Oh – and lava tube caves, which it turns out are the main attraction at this national monument. Because it was now mid-week and after Labor Day I easily found an unreserved campground here.
Lava Beds National Monument is quite close to the Oregon state line. The next morning, Day 5 of my trip to California but Working Day #3, I was up early and stopped for breakfast in Merrill, OR. Technically even that little sliver of a day had to be counted toward my California total, but it didn’t matter because I was well within the state’s stingy limit.
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