Trenton, NJ Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

Section 21-7, Nuisances committed by dogs, works as a two-part rule. Subsection A prohibits an owner from permitting a dog to annoy neighbors and other persons living within the immediate vicinity by barking and howling, from letting the dog trespass on another person's property, and from letting it damage shrubbery, flowers, gardens or other property belonging to a neighbor. The same subsection separately bars a dog from committing a nuisance on sidewalks, public places, or on the floor, wall, stairway or roof of premises used in common by the public, or on a fence, wall or stairway of a building abutting a public place, a provision the code cross-references to its canine-waste article.

Subsection B builds in a warning step before enforcement: when police receive a complaint of a continuing annoyance or trespass, the officer must use reasonable diligence to independently confirm the barking or trespass is actually happening, then issue an appropriate warning to the person responsible. Only after that warning does the officer sign a complaint and issue a citation to anyone still found in violation. That means a single barking incident, or a complaint the responding officer cannot independently verify, will not by itself support a citation; the ordinance requires the officer's own confirmation plus a prior warning before a citation issues.