Farmington Hills, MI Noise Ordinances: Amplified Music & Outdoor Sound (2026)

Section 18-161, codified from Code 1981 Sec. 125, sits in Article V, "Offenses Against Public Peace," of Chapter 18. It makes it unlawful to disturb the public peace and quiet by shouting, whistling, loud, boisterous or vulgar conduct, or by playing musical instruments, phonographs, radios, televisions, tape players or any other means of sound amplification, when doing so unreasonably annoys or disturbs the quiet, comfort and repose of people nearby. Unlike the city's zoning noise-performance standard in Sec. 17-101, which sets numeric decibel ceilings for fixed land uses, Sec.

18-161 carries no meter reading requirement: officers and courts apply a nuisance-based test, weighing whether the sound unreasonably interfered with a neighbor's peace regardless of measured volume. The statute expressly applies "at any time or place," so there is no daytime safe harbor written into this section; amplified sound that crosses the annoyance threshold can be cited at noon as readily as at midnight. A companion provision, Sec. 18-172, separately targets vehicle-mounted stereos audible 50 feet away, and Sec. 18-164 carves out its own hourly rule for construction noise, so a party stereo, a car audio system and a jobsite generator are each governed by a different section of this same Article V. Because Sec. 18-161 does not carry its own penalty clause, violations default to the Code's general misdemeanor penalty in Sec. 1-13.