Boise, ID Noise from Specific Sources: Car Alarm Limits (2026)

Boise City Code section 6-16-3, part of Title 6, Chapter 16 (Vehicle Amplified Sounds), lists five categories of sound that fall outside the chapter's fifty-foot amplified-noise prohibition in section 6-16-2. Subsection C is the car-alarm carve-out: vehicular burglar alarms or emergency alarms when used to request assistance or warn of hazardous situations are exempt from the noise ban, meaning an alarm that sounds because a vehicle is being broken into, or that a driver activates in an emergency, cannot be cited under section 6-16-2 no matter how loud or how long it runs.

The other four exemptions in the same section cover the sirens and sound systems of authorized emergency vehicles (subsection A), vehicular safety warning devices required by law such as backup beepers (subsection B), amplified sound used for advertising like an ice cream truck's jingle (subsection D), and amplified sound used under an approved special event permit, such as parade floats, within the days and hours the permit conditions (subsection E). Because the exemption in subsection C is tied to the alarm's purpose, an alarm that malfunctions or triggers repeatedly for reasons unrelated to a burglary or genuine emergency loses the statutory protection and could still support a noise complaint, since the carve-out only shields alarms used to request assistance or warn of hazardous situations, not alarm noise generally. Boise added chapter 16, including this exemption, by Ordinance 25-17 in 2017 and last amended it by Ordinance 13-23 on March 28, 2023.