• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Your Night, Your Party

What can happen if your party gets out of hand

Normally, police won’t arrest you just because your party is loud. Usually when neighbours make a complaint to the police about a loud party that’s disturbing them, police will turn up at the party and ask the party organisors, or the person whose house it is to turn down the music, and keep the noise down.

But if the noise or other anti-social behaviour by party guests is causing, or is likely to cause a serious problem with your neighbours, police can enter your property and make arrests to stop or prevent a “breach of the peace”.

What is a “breach of the peace” ?

Generally breaching the peace means disturbing the peace of others. You can breach the peace by disturbing the public, or just your neighbour.

Making noise, arguing, shouting, or using offensive language would not, alone, be considered enough to be breaches of the peace.

A “breach of the peace” requires some threat of violence. It includes situations where a person or their property is harmed, or is likely to be harmed, or where a person is afraid this may happen.

What will police do about breaches of the peace?

Threatened or actual physical violence against your neighbour, or damage to your neighbour’s property could result in criminal charges being laid.

However, where there are disputes between neighbours during a party it’s often the case that nothing serious has occurred, and all that’s required is for the party to be toned down a little. In these situations police tend to focus on keeping the peace. Sometimes, however, an arrest will have to be made to prevent serious offences from occurring. For example, where a noisy party is causing such a disturbance in the neighbourhood that:

• it is likely to lead to a violent argument with objecting neighbours, or
• neighbours are genuinely afraid that they, or their property will be harmed.

Trashing the neighbours’ yard

It’s against the law to litter your neighbour’s yard with empty beer bottles, cigarette butts or other debris from your party. You could be fined up to $2,200 for littering your neighbour’s yard.

If the neighbour’s yard is littered with dangerous or harmful items, or littered in a dangerous or harmful way, you could get into even more trouble for aggravated littering. You could be fined up to $3,300.

Aggravated littering doesn’t have to actually endanger or harm anyone or anything; it’s enough if the littering was reasonably likely to cause or contribute to the danger or harm. The actual or likely danger or harm must be to a person, animal, premises or property. Beer bottles that have been thrown over the fence and smashed in the neighbour’s yard could be considered aggravated littering. Throwing a lit cigarette over the fence is considered aggravated littering.

Littering which involves a hypodermic syringe, or part of a hypodermic syringe is also enough to be considered aggravated littering.

Upsetting the neighbours if you’re a renter:

Having a wild party in rented accommodation can be risky. Apart from the fact that you’ll upset your landlord if his or her property gets trashed during a wild party with your friends, you could be breaching your legal and contractual obligations as a tenant and putting your lease at risk.
If you allow your party to get out of hand with very loud music and anti-social behaviour, you could be breaching your obligation to not cause or allow any disturbance of “the reasonable peace, comfort or privacy of any neighbour”.

What can you do to avoid trouble with your neighbours?

There are lots of things you can do to make your party a great one, without letting it get out of control. See the Party Tips section for some good ideas.
It’s worth letting your neighbours know about your party in advance; you may even want to invite them to the party.