Neighbors bark back at noisy kennel in Kennebunk: We just want peace and quiet

KENNEBUNK, Maine — Neighbors of a kennel on Alfred Road say their lives are disrupted daily by the incessant barking of dogs.

They say the noise is affecting their quality of life, from their holidays to summer mornings in their backyards, from their ability to work from home to their property values, and beyond.

Scott Ellis, the president of the Westwoods Homeowners Association, and a few of his neighbors, Jeff McCorkle, Philip Pipcock, and Sue and Mark Poitras, met at McCorkle’s home on Westwoods Road on Feb. 12 and discussed their mounting frustrations about the noise levels coming from the Red Barn Inn, the kennel located nearby at 421 Alfred Road.

“At times, it almost sounds like a pack of wolves in terms of some of the howling that occurs from there,” Ellis said.

The owner of the Red Barn Inn is currently before the town’s Site Plan Review Board to amend the business' 2009 approval to officially allow more dogs on the property at one time. For a while now, as many as 100 dogs per day stay at the kennel, according to owner Audra Simpson. The town’s approval in 2009 restricted the number of dogs at the site to 15.

Town officials discovered the 2009 restriction while working to address neighbors' complaints, and Simpson is now looking to bring the business into compliance.

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Neighbors say kennel has expanded over the years

McCorkle and the Westwoods Homeowners Association allege that the Red Barn Inn has significantly increased its operation in just the last three-plus years — and did so without any approval from the town.

Ellis said he and his neighbors had no issues with noise levels at the kennel during its first decade or so of operation.

“It was when the expansion started to occur … that we began to hear more dogs barking and had an issue,” he said.

Simpson said the business expansions were "done two owners ago.” She purchased the kennel last spring.

“I just want to keep exactly the business I purchased,” Simpson said.

Simpson has said she wants to work with neighbors. During an interview in late January, Simpson said she is voluntarily proposing to lower the number of dogs at her business to 85, even though “demand hasn’t changed.”

She said she has hundreds of clients, most of whom live in Kennebunk but also others from such states as Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts.

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Site Plan Review Board takes up kennel expansion

At a meeting on Jan. 18, Attorney Kristen Collins, who is representing Simpson, met with the Site Plan Review Board and presented her client’s request. That evening, the board did not consider Simpson’s application to be complete and requested more information about parking spaces, outdoor lighting, and the buildings used as kennels at the site.

She was slated to go back before the board on Thursday, Feb. 15.

In a Feb. 12 memo, Planning Director Lee Jay Feldman informed the board that while noise complaints led to the requested amendment, the town’s zoning ordinance does not address noise.

The noise complaints are an “issue for the police to handle,” Feldman noted.

Feldman added that the board’s charge is to determine if the site can accommodate 80 dogs daily. As well, Feldman said, the board needs to weigh Simpson’s request to remove the 15-dog restriction from the site.

Simpson is also seeking to erect a vinyl fence alongside a current chain-link one so that dogs will not be able to see – and therefore be provoked into barking – the cats, deer and other animals she said wander within sight of where they run and play.

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Neighbors want excessive barking to end

Pipcock, who moved to the neighborhood from Montana a couple of years ago, said a vinyl fence would not help solve the noise problems.

“The dogs are not facing outwards,” he said, referring to the open space behind the kennel. “They’re facing inwards, barking at each other.”

Sue Poitras, who lives on nearby Drala Drive, said the dogs bark during all kinds of circumstances, including the storm that hit the region on Jan. 13.

“They were just howling in that storm,” Poitras said.

Simpson said she could not recall the events at the kennel on Jan. 13 but said dogs do have a passage that gives them the option to go outdoors if they wish.

Ellis emphasized that no one taking issue with the noise is against dogs or kennels. He said the issue is the noise level and the assertion that the parameters of the town’s 2009 approval for the business are not being followed.

“That is the problem,” he said.

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What’s next

If, on Feb. 15, members of the board officially consider Simpson’s application complete, they can then schedule a site walk at the kennel and a public hearing.

If the review board’s meeting in January is any indication, the upcoming public hearing should be well attended.

While no one from the public spoke at the podium during last month’s meeting, the room was packed with people representing both the support Simpson has for her business and the complaints the town has received.

Before buying the Red Barn Inn, Simpson had brought her dog, Tucker, there, and so liked the place that she said she jumped at the opportunity to purchase it when it went on the market. She said her business meets the needs of anyone who wants to make sure their dogs receive care while they are away, or who wish for their dogs to have opportunities to play and socialize while they are at work.

“I have made improvements to the kennel operation to be a better neighbor, but I feel like the goal of some is to shut down the business entirely,” she said.

The neighbors who gathered on Westwood Road earlier this week insisted that is not the case.

“It’s a very unfair framing,” Pipcock said. “That’s not what any of us want. At the end of the day, we just want to live in what the zoning ordinance says this place is: a rural residential neighborhood ... not a business environment, but a place where we can sit in our backyards and enjoy a cup of coffee and not be inundated with someone else’s problems.

“It comes down to peace and quiet,” Pipcock said. “That’s my end goal, and I think it’s the end goal of most people here.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kennel owner faces backlash from neighbors over 'constant' barking dogs