The city council in Yakima, Wash., has approved a verified
response policy for burglar alarms beginning on June 2. The
council agreed to a proposal by the city’s police, but also
say the policy is on a two-year trial period.
Beginning in 90 days, police in Yakima, about 150 miles
southeast of Seattle, will no longer respond to a burglar
alarm until it has been checked and confirmed by the alarm
company that supplied the alarm.
Police told the council that 98 percent of the burglar
alarm calls they had responded to were false.
In other false alarm news …
REGINA, Saskatchewan, Canada: Security alarm
companies in the Saskatchewan, Canada, city of Regina are
criticizing a city proposal to send the bills for false
alarm fines to the alarm companies instead of the customers
who commit them.
The city is considering a false alarm bylaw that would
charge a $75 fine for a third false alarm during the course
of a year to the company monitoring the alarm. “I don’t
think the onus should be on the monitoring firms,” Jordan
Klemick, the branch manager with On Guard Security, told
the Regina Leader-Post.
Under the policy, police would no longer be the “first
responders” to a location after a fourth false alarm within
a year.
