Errant fire alerts may soon cost property owners some cash
CITY HALL Those annoying alarms going off in the night may cost property owners more than just their neighbors’ ire.
Soon, there may be a price to pay for the errant fire alarms around town that have wasted resources and jeopardized public safety by sending Santa Monica firefighters on wild goose chases.
From 2003 to 2005, the SMFD responded to 3,597 false alarms. Of that, 264 locations required three or more emergency responses during the same year.
To promote the responsible use of fire alarm systems and to recoup some of the cash spent responding to bogus calls, the City Council on Tuesday, at the recommendation of the SMFD, established a fee of $337.13 that property owners would have to pay for the third false alarm of the year and every successive one after that.
City Hall currently charges a fee of $125 for both the third and fourth response by the SMPD to false burglar alarms.
“We don’t want to kill a fly with a sledgehammer,” said Fire Marshal Jim Glew. “We want these people to maintain systems properly so that in a time of an emergency we can get there in a timely manner and not be delayed.”
More than 10 percent of all calls received ended up being false alarms, according to Glew.
Beverly Hills, El Segundo and Culver City already have similar fees in place.
The amount of the fee was calculated with the help of the Finance Department, Glew said, and is a reflection of the cost associated with responding to an alarm.
Based on the response to 88 false alarms during fiscal year 2005, the fee would have generated approximately $28,000 to the general fund, according to a city staff report.
Glew said that most of the false alarms occur in commercial buildings, but there are some residents who do have fire alarms linked with their home security system.
Cindy Giordano of CB Richard Ellis, which manages the Water Gardens complex off Cloverfield Boulevard, said the fee probably wouldn’t be an issue since the company conducts routine checks of the life safety system.
“We have a system that is very well run and you don’t run into challenges that maybe a residence or smaller company would have,” Giordano said. “We also run fire drills annually, so that is additional check of the system.”
Representatives from the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce could not be reached for comment.
The fees are something of a last resort. The SMFD heavily promoted the Fire Watch Program, which requires businesses to have two bonded security guards patrolling the premises for a 24-hour period if there were two or more alarms within a 48-hour period. The guards would be required to notify the SMFD immediately in the event of a false alarm.
“This has not proved to have a positive result,” Glew said, “which is reflected in the statistics.”
The fee will be effective July 1, 2007. Each year thereafter the fee could be increased to match the cost of inflation.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 10, 2007. Read the original PDF.