By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Glasgow could soon have a false-alarm ordinance meant to encourage businesses and homeowners to better maintain their alarm systems and to conserve the resources of emergency responders for actual problems.
Police Chief Guy Howie raised the possibility at the regular meeting of the Glasgow City Council Public Safety Committee earlier this week.
He said the city attorney has been drafting a proposed ordinance and is mostly done with it.
“We need to do something about the false alarms,” Howie said. “The problem is the increasing number. Last year, we had 1,373 burglary and robbery alarms. Only three of those were valid alarms, so that means 1,370 were false.”
He said an alarm is supposed to be an alert of an issue or a problem that, as it relates to the police department, is a crime in progress. As it relates to the fire department, it’s either a medical emergency or a fire.
“So we respond appropriately as if it’s a crime in progress,” the police chief said.
Councilwoman Elizabeth Shoemaker asked whether these were at homes or businesses or everything.
Howie said those numbers encompass all alarm calls, but they mostly come from businesses.
Councilman Freddie Norris asked whether these were automated alarms, and Howie responded in the affirmative, adding that it could also mean a neighbor is calling to say they hear someone else’s alarm is sounding.
Typically, two officers would be dispatched to the location of the alarm.
“When we do that, it pulls our resources from other duties,” Howie said. “It’s a reduction in our police service to the community. It hinders and prevents your officers from engaging in proactive policing.”
For example, if those officers are patrolling an area where there have been repeated problems, they would have to leave that area, potentially, to respond to an alarm when there really is no emergency occurring.
“Most of the time when we get there, the alarm is, you know, either false or an employee error,” Howie said.
Frequently, once they are there and need a keyholder to let them in to secure the building and then to turn off the alarm, dispatchers have not been provided with a current list of contacts, so they have to hunt around to find the appropriate person and their contact information. Sometimes those keyholders live out of town and the officers have to wait “idly by” for 30 to 45 minutes for that person to arrive.
Howie said that a total of 254 hours were spent on last year’s alarms, which equates thirteen 40-hour work weeks.
“That is a lot of time that your police officers are spending time doing things they don’t need to be doing,” he said.
Based on the $20.85 average pay of officers across all ranks, he said, that sums up to $10,925 worth of officers’ time that’s being wasted and money being lost.
Councilman James “Happy” Neal said the officers were already on duty, so that would have been paid out regardless, so technically they aren’t “losing” that time or money.
Howie said that’s correct, but that time and money could be better spent.
Neal asked how the business owners would be notified of the new local law, the chief said the city attorney has recommended that the ordinance should not go into effect until three months after its approval to provide time to put the information out there.
Howie said that, for example, they could place door hangers at locations where they respond to alarms or possibly mail copies of the ordinance.
“This ordinance specifically addressed everything I just said. It encourages the business owners to maintain their alarms. So, if it’s a faulty alarm and it keeps going off and they know it goes off – if they are not maintaining their alarm and it keeps going off, they’re going to start getting fined. If they’re not educating their employees on how to turn an alarm off or turn an alarm on or give them the correct code when alarm company calls and says, ‘Hey, your alarm’s going off.’ ‘Yeah, I just opened up.’ ‘Well, what’s your code?’ ‘They never told me what the code was.’ So then we still have to go and make contact with that employee.”
Neal asked what would happen if an animal or something else tripped the alarm.
“Some of this is going to come down to common sense,” Howie said.
He said sometimes in large warehouses, it’s not uncommon for a bird or mouse to set off an alarm, but technology has advanced to the point that some alarm systems can distinguish whether an animal or a human is involved.
Norris asked whether the false alarms are mostly happening at eight or 10 of the same places, but Howie said it’s across the board, although there are some places where it happens more often and others where it’s a rarity.
In the ordinance drafted so far, a warning would be issued for the first and second false alarms after the new rule takes effect. After that, a fine of $50 would kick in and the amount would progressively increase up to $500, but Howie said it would take a while to get to that point. A copy of the draft was not provided to the committee members but an outline of the information he provided was.
Mayor Henry Royse asked, in a scenario where a business pays another company to monitor the alarms, who would be responsible for the fine – the local business or the monitoring company.
Howie said it’s the local business’ responsibility to make sure the alarm is functioning properly and get it repaired as necessary.
“It exempts weather-related alarms,” he said.
Strong thunderstorms tend to trigger alarms, so those would not count against them.
The ordinance would also provide for a process through which the business or homeowner could appeal a fine to this Public Safety Committee, the chief said.
“So it’s not a blanket ‘There’s nothing we can do,’” he said.
He said that if the alarm company gets a valid cancellation of the alarm and notifies dispatch before the police arrive on the scene, in which case that response would be cancelled, that also would not count against the owner. The right employees’ being able to provide the requested code can help ensure that happens.
“But if we arrive on scene and it’s a false alarm or an employee error, then they’ll get a false alarm [tallied],” Howie said.
Neal asked whether other places had such ordinances, and Howie said they are common, listing several other cities with them.
“We’re one of the few municipalities that does not have a false-alarm ordinance,” he said.
Beverly Harbison, director of the Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Communications Center, asked him whether some places include fire and medical false alarms in their ordinances, because she thought they did.
Howie confirmed that is the case and said that led right to his next question, which he somewhat directed to Glasgow Fire Department Chief Lucas Tinsley. Given that the ordinance is still in draft form, Howie wondered whether he would want false alarms for fire to be included.
“I would be onboard with that, for sure,” Tinsley said.
He said the thing his department tends to see when they’ve responded to a business three times within about two weeks is that they have some trouble with the alarm system and they aren’t getting the company to come and fix it.
Tinsley said those scenarios can lead to complacency among the emergency responders, who may think, “Well, here we go again. I’m going to a false alarm.”
He said there have been instances in other places where such complacency has led to fatalities among the responders because they’ve become accustomed to the alarms’ being false.
“They’re not in the right mindset when they show up,” Tinsley said.
Howie agreed.
Norris asked whether they’ve tried just having conversations with the owners that tend to have repeat problems.
“We do, and some of them don’t care because there’s no consequences,” Howie said.
Neal said he thought that businesses’ getting and keeping their contact lists current would go a long way toward fixing the problem.
Howie said the current draft of the ordinance has wording to the effect that they are required to do that. He said he intended to email the committee members a copy of that draft before the next council meeting for their review.
He said the original draft, based on some other cities’ ordinances, would have required people to register their alarms and pay a fee to do so, but that was removed.
“We tried to take the bureaucracy out of this and make it as simple as possible,” Howie said.
Neal said he likes the idea in general but he thought some things needed to be ironed out.
Norris asked for the names of the top five or six businesses that have repeat issues, because he’d like to talk with them personally. Howie said he would provide them to Norris but he wouldn’t call them out in the public meeting.
It is possible the committee will have a special-called meeting to further discuss the proposed ordinance before it goes to the full council.
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