For years, Jim Daly said, Arlington police wasted time and money responding to false alarms.
Security systems and burglar alarms, installed in businesses and homes, would go off when there was no burglary, no intruder, no danger and often, no one home. But police would still have to respond.
Daly now serves as head of the Arlington Police Department’s False Alarm Unit, which began enforcing the county’s false alarm ordinance a year ago Monday.
Fines levied for false alarms could have prompted complaints, but county residents and businesses have taken the ordinance in stride. The effort also should also free up police, Daly said.
“I was an officer when it was going on,” he said. “Officers would go to the scene, check all the doors and windows, and nobody’s home.”
For the most part, those responses were fruitless – police say 99 percent of alarm calls were false, set off by faulty wiring in alarm units or other problems.
The county’s false alarm ordinance has had the right effect, Daly said. In 2000, there were only 133 reports of true suspicious activity coming out of the 10,507 alarm responses officers ran. Last year, there were only 6,886 alarm calls, with 108 incidents stemming from alarms.
FALSE ALARMS are a waste, Daly said: a waste of police man-hours, 3,621 in 2000, and therefore county money.
It was also a waste of time if the owners of the home or business were away, he said – they wouldn’t realize the need to fix their alarm.
“Aside from the alarm company, they might never know it happened,” Daly said. “Now, somebody goes to check up, to tell them what happened.”
In November 2000, the Arlington County Board passed the Arlington Security Alarms Ordinance, Section 33, establishing penalties for repeated false alarms, as well as a False Alarm Unit. The ordinance went into effect on Jan. 1, 2001, but alarm owners had a 90-day grace period before enforcement began April 1, 2001.
The ordinance requires alarm owners to register their system with the county, free for residents but costing businesses $30.
The unit, made up of two civilian police employees and Daly, notifies home and business owners when their security alarms are set off.
Alarm owners are given two warnings for false alarms. The third false alarm from their unit results in a $50 fine, and fines increase by $50 for every subsequent false up to a maximum fine of $300 after eight false alarms per year.
Not every false alarm counts, either. If power outages result in many units going off, those may not result in either a warning or a fine. “It’s at my discretion. If I notice 100 alarms in an hour’s time, we take that into consideration,” Daly said.
Funds from fines pay for the salaries of the civilian employees of the False Alarm Unit, any excess funds go back to the county government’s general fund. But the unit is not really a money maker, but a time saver, Daly said.
The False Alarm Unit has saved between $50,000 and $60,000 in wasted police hours, he said, as alarm owners fix faulty systems and cut down on unnecessary calls.
“As time goes on, the amount we collect will decrease, because fewer and fewer alarms will be going off,” he said.
LOCAL FINES are slightly higher than Alexandria, but the fines are no financial burden, Dorothy Stepp said.
Stepp, the chair of Arlington’s Citizen’s Crime Prevention Council, echoed Daly’s praise for the False Alarm Unit. Before it existed, she said, police spent lots of time responding to burglar alarms and security systems that went off due to electrical or computer problems.
“It takes [officers] away from doing other things that are more important,” she said. The false alarm ordinance “sure helped cut down.”
Stepp’s Crime Prevention Council had no input on the ordinance, but it was just what council members were looking for. “It was a good step to take,” Stepp said. “It makes alarm companies more accountable, more effective, and the police aren’t chasing false alarms all the time.”
Jim Pebley, president of the Arlington Civic Federation, said he has heard no complaints from federation members about false alarm fines, so there seemed to be little discontent about the ordinance among homeowners.
Business owners apparently feel the same way. Richard Doud, chair of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, said he had not heard any false alarm fine complaints from local business owners.
“It’s not sparking a whole lot of discussion,” he said. “We’re taking it like troopers.”