When Glenwood South gets rowdy, who should enforce Raleigh’s noise rules?

Who should enforce Raleigh’s noise rules?

When nightclubs in Glenwood South keep neighbors up at night, residents are told to call the city’s non-emergency police phone line.

But what if police weren’t the ones to respond?

A new report analyzed “the strengths, challenges and opportunities within the social economy of the Fayetteville Street and Glenwood South districts.”

It suggests a “paradigm shift” to support the nightlife districts by creating an Office of Nighttime Economy and a Night Manager position. Doing that could also help address a “notable level of mistrust,” the report says, between nightlife venue operators and the city.

“They are suggesting we go [back] to a noise decibel,” instead of a reasonable person standard to measure compliance with noise rules, Mayor Janet Cowell said. “That we hire experts in noise. ... We move this out of the Police Department. [That] we have professional team, a nightlife manager.”

“Everything in that report resonated with me that that’s the right approach,” the mayor said.

Angela Floyd, who lives downtown at The Paramount condominiums, often speaks to city leaders about nightlife noise.

“I was extremely excited about the study,” Floyd said during the City Council’s Safe, Vibrant and Healthy Community Committee meeting on Tuesday. “You know, I’ve never thought the police needed to be saddled with this issue.”

Floyd was one of three residents who expressed frustration with how the noise ordinance is currently enforced.

Greg Morris of Five Points said his neighborhood regularly deals with “loitering, drugs, traffic, littering, urinating, vomiting and more” associated with the “late night ruckus.”

“Try listening to a thumping bass sound for four to five hours every night, Wednesday through Sunday, and then police come out and say, ‘That’s not unreasonable noise.’”

There were nearly 10,000 noise violations reported throughout the city from Jan 1, 2024, to May 14, 2025. In Glenwood South, there were 641 noise complaints and 49 citations issued.

“My priority as the chief is to make sure that this city is a safe city,” Police Chief Rico Boyce told the committee. “The resources that I’ve allocated downtown have proven we’re moving in the right direction to keep this a safe city, a safe area. We recover quite a bit of firearms in this area. We’ve arrested a lot of folks that probably had some intentions to do some harm to people in this area. So I appreciate the work that we’ve done, and I recognize and acknowledge we still have to do better.”

Officers will be reminded of last year’s noise ordinance changes through training and shift briefings during roll call, he said.

“Some of the complaints that I’ve received is, you know, one officer would come and say one thing, and another officer will say something completely different on the same type of call,” Boyce said. “So there’s no consistency there amongst my department. I own that I’m going to fix that through education, in our in service training as well as roll calls.”

The committee, which comprises four council members, will meet again in June to get an update from city staff about the study’s recommendations.

This story was originally published May 28, 2025 at 5:30 AM.