Issaquah, WA Noise Ordinances: Amplified Music & Outdoor Sound (2026)

IMC 9.22.010 is titled Public disturbance noises – Restriction. Its lead sentence makes it unlawful for any person to cause, or for any person in possession of property to allow to originate from the property, sound that is a public disturbance noise. That wording reaches both the person making the sound and the property holder who allows it.

Three items apply to amplified or reproduced sound. Subsection G covers the use of a sound amplifier or other device capable of producing or reproducing amplified sound on public streets, but only when the purpose is commercial advertising or sales, or attracting the attention of the public to any vehicle, structure or property or the contents therein. Vendors whose sole method of selling is from a moving vehicle are exempt from subsection G.

Subsection H sets the one numeric test in the section for portable equipment: sound from portable audio equipment, such as tape players, radios and compact disc players, operated at a volume audible greater than 50 feet from the source, and if not operated upon the property of the owner. The 50-foot measure is distance, not a decibel reading, and the clause applies only where the operator is not on the owner's property. Subsection D of the same section separately covers sounds from musical instruments, audio sound systems and band sessions that emanate from a building.

Subsection I carves out regularly scheduled events at parks, naming public address systems for baseball games and park concerts. The section closes with a proviso that the enumeration is not to be read as excluding other acts and noises which offend the public peace, so the list does not cap what the city can treat as a disturbance.