Florence County, SC Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

Florence County Code § 6-2(p), inside the animal cruelty section of Chapter 6, targets chronic barking rather than an isolated bark: it is illegal for anyone to allow their dog's voice or any other sound produced by the dog to be projected into a human habituated structure where the owner or lawful tenant inside that structure finds the sound intolerable. To support a complaint, the noise must be documented in at least five separate episodes occurring within a sequential seven-day period, a threshold that screens out one-off incidents and requires a dated log before enforcement follows.

A first violation is not fined outright: § 6-2(p) gives the owner a warning and seven days to remedy the problem. 00 plus court costs. Because § 6-2(p) sits inside § 6-2, the general animal cruelty section, it is enforced by the same Environmental Services officers (ESOs) who handle the rest of Chapter 6, and the same due-process structure applies: an ESO investigates, documents, and issues the notice or citation, with disputes heard before a magistrate. The ordinance does not set a decibel limit or time-of-day restriction; it is keyed entirely to the documented, repeated intrusion of the sound into another person's home and that person's own finding that it is intolerable.