Quiet hours in Cass County, ND — also called the noise ordinance, nighttime noise rules, or residential quiet time — define the hours during which excessive noise is prohibited.
Cass County, ND has not adopted a countywide noise ordinance with decibel limits or fixed quiet hours for unincorporated areas. Noise complaints in unincorporated Cass County are handled under North Dakota's general nuisance law at NDCC Chapter 42-01, which makes any unreasonable noise that disturbs others a public or private nuisance. Cities within the county - Fargo, West Fargo, Horace - apply stricter municipal codes (Fargo requires reasonable noise levels between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.). The Cass County Sheriff's Office handles disturbance calls in the unincorporated portions and on township roads.
Unincorporated Cass County, North Dakota has not enacted a stand-alone noise ordinance setting decibel limits or specific quiet-hour windows. Instead, North Dakota Century Code Chapter 42-01 (Nuisances) is the governing authority. NDCC 42-01-01 defines a nuisance to include anything that is injurious to health, indecent, offensive to the senses, or that obstructs the free use of property so as to interfere comfortably with the enjoyment of life or property. NDCC 42-01-06 establishes that a private nuisance is one that affects a single individual or a determinate number of persons; NDCC 42-01-07 allows civil abatement. Within Cass County, individual cities have adopted their own noise ordinances: City of Fargo Code prohibits unreasonable noise from gatherings of two or more people in residential areas between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.; West Fargo, Horace, and Casselton have parallel municipal codes. Township boards in Cass County (Reed, Stanley, Rich, Harwood, etc.) have authority under NDCC 58-03 to adopt nuisance regulations, but most have not enacted specific noise rules. For unincorporated areas, residents call the Cass County Sheriff's Office non-emergency line at 701-241-5800 to report disturbances; deputies respond under disorderly conduct (NDCC 12.1-31-01) when the noise rises to a public-peace violation.
Because there is no county noise ordinance with a numeric penalty, enforcement in unincorporated Cass County proceeds either as a civil nuisance abatement action under NDCC 42-01-07 (in district court) or as a disorderly conduct citation under NDCC 12.1-31-01, a class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine. Inside city limits, municipal noise ordinances control and typically carry fines of $50 to $500 per offense.
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