False Alarms May Not Be Free Anymore
CITY OF SANTA CLARITA AND SHERIFF’S STATION LAUNCH FALSE ALARM PROGRAM
The City of Santa Clarita and the Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Station have created a "False Alarm Prevention" brochure designed to cut down on the number of false alarms that occur within Santa Clarita city limits.
The brochure advises property owners and businesses about the False Alarm Ordinance as well as how to be more aware of their alarm systems and how they work. Almost 99% of the 8000 alarms the Sheriff’s Department responds to every year are estimated to be false.
As a result, handwritten False Alarm notices are now submitted to the City every week instead of the previous time span of four to six weeks, and notices given to the City and business/property owners have been eliminated.
The brochure advises that, if an alarm is accidentally set off, the property/business owner should not panic or dial 911, but should attempt to reset the system and contact the alarm company for a password or ID number.
Sergeant A.J. Rotella of the City of Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Business Alliance Program says,"We’d like to encourage the residents of the Santa Clarita Valley to help reduce false alarms and avoid fines through the proper use and maintenance of your alarm system."
We have an alarm system that we’ve set off by accident at least 5 times this year. Fortunately, we have not had any visits from the sheriff’s dept yet. Basically because we’re usually home, so we shut it off right away after we crap ourselves and the one time we left our dog in the house…oops. She set it off. My alarm company called me before they called the sheriff. Little did I know what a convenient feature this was with my service. Had I not answered my cell, they would have called the police.
According to the False Alarm Ordinance anything more than two calls may result in a fee/fine.
Well, it would suck, but I do suppose that there are some folks out there that do this regularly and maybe just need to learn how to use their service? I don’t know really, but can you imagine my dog in the house with that alarm blaring?
Here’s more info on the ordinance.
