Southern 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: October 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 one day (and two nights) in mid-week, you can re-start the clock.
One piece of good news is that California has very few local ordinances or regulations more restrictive than state law. However, in this case that’s not because they have any state pre-emption. Rather, it’s because ACSOL aggressively sues & overturns them. Therefore, like Arizona and New Mexico which I had just passed through on my October 2023 road trip, you can travel in California mostly without fear of unknowingly tripping over some local land mine.
In October 2023 I came to Southern California to attend the annual ACSOL conference. Since this conference always takes place on a weekend those days didn’t count towards my California total and I could enter the state on Thursday and stay as long as the following Tuesday. As it happened I left on Monday.
Mojave National Preserve
Upon entering California from Bullhead City, AZ at about 8:30 am I spent the morning of Day 1 exploring the south half of Mojave National Preserve. A think many people’s first impression might be, this is a desert so it must be pretty much the same everywhere, but that’s not true. Unfortunately Mitchell Caverns was closed for the season, but other areas such as Kelso Depot and Hole in the Wall Visitors Center were open.
Four days later I visited the
north half of Mojave Reserve on the return leg of my California trip when I passed
by on I-15. In this area there are
cinder cones and a large sand dune field.
A rail line also passes through Mojave, and I saw a long train bristling
with tanks and other military equipment traveling southwest, presumably towards
the Port of Los Angeles on its way to Ukraine.
Joshua Tree National Park
I devoted the afternoon of Day 1 to Joshua Tree National Park, which is very beautiful and diverse. I also camped there overnight (Belle Campground) and spent a little of the next morning taking in the southern half of this great park.
But I spent the remainder of Day 2 trying to get to Los Angeles and the ACSOL conference which would take place on Saturday and Sunday, days which did not count toward my total allowable days in California because it was a weekend.
Upon leaving the conference on Sunday evening I thought I could head into nearby San Gabriel Mountains National Monument to find a campground, but this proved impossible partly because some of the internal park roads were already closed for the season (!) and partly because there were a lot of other people who apparently had the same idea I did. In the end I found a little “informal” place to park for the night.
The next morning was Monday and therefore counted as Day 3 of my four allowable days in California. My goal for this day was simple – get out of California and as close to Zion National Park in Utah as possible. Even with a little side trip into the north half of Mohave National Preserve (see above) I accomplished this goal easily. I was in Nevada by 4:00 pm.
Previous visit: October 2021
On my previous visit I entered California as early as possible on a Thursday morning. I wanted to have as much time as possible that day to take in Joshua Tree National Park – which I did and thoroughly enjoyed – before proceeding as far west and north as I could that day, finding an inexpensive motel to set myself up to visit Sequoia National Park the next day.
That’s when my trip began to go badly. That part of California had suffered major forest fires only weeks earlier. Perhaps you’ll recall seeing news reports about firefighters wrapping the General Sherman in aluminum foil. The skies hung with stale smoke and both Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks were still closed, as was Giant Sequoia National Monument. It was sad.
However, it turns out that most of the Giant Sequoias in California aren’t even in these parks and monuments. Of course, if you’re from California you already know this and consider me to be a complete idiot for not knowing, but I was happy to find that Sierra National Forest was undamaged by fire and still open for business, and has its own Sequoia groves for tourist to take pictures of.
From there I proceeded further north and found a National Forest campground with plenty of sites available about 40 miles from the Yosemite south entrance. My plan was to spend the next two days (Sat. & Sun.) there. Little did I know that even in mid-October the weather was starting to deteriorate rapidly.
Also, even though the park was crowded the tram busses had stopped operating at the end of September, which meant that I couldn’t go see Mariposa Giant Sequoia Grove unless I felt like hiking six miles each way. That would’ve meant devoting most of that first day to just that one hike, so it was out of the question.
Instead I devoted both of my two days to Yosemite Valley, the park’s main draw. Spectacular, of course, and there were plenty of Giant Sequoias, but no bus trolleys operating there either. My plan was to leave by the east entrance on the afternoon of my second day, which I did although I was surprised to see signs announcing that entire road would be closed for the season by Wednesday of the coming week! Then by the time I got to Tioga Pass there was snow on the ground.
Again, if you know California you’ll call me an idiot for not realizing that mid-October is already too late in the season. I stayed at a little motel in the town of Lee Vining, and the next morning it was 19 degrees and my car had two inches of snow on it! Oh well, this is how we learn. All the local campgrounds were closed for the season.
My plan for that Monday was to cruise down U.S. 395 and drive through Death Valley National Park before leaving the state. That much I accomplished successfully. Next time I’ll know better than to leave only two days for Yosemite, and certainly not in October.
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