BEAUMONT, Calif. — The Beaumont Police Department will begin enforcing residential and commercial alarm permits and false alarm activations, effective March 1.
Located about 25 miles northwest of Palm Springs in Southern California’s Riverside County, the police here say the department responds to thousands of alarms each year at homes and businesses across the city, yet only a handful of these are valid.
“False alarms cause a reduction in manpower and unnecessary cost to the City of Beaumont,” the Beaumont Police Department states on its website.
In most cases, false alarms are generally the result of operator or system error, police say. The City of Beaumont already requires that residents and businesses obtain a permit from the city if they want to install and use an alarm system.
As part of a city ordinance, an application form and an annual fee of $21 is payable within 10 days of installation of a new alarm system or activation of an existing system. The permit application is placed on file with the Beaumont Police Department and must be renewed on an annual basis, according to the ordinance.
If an alarm user fails to obtain a permit through the city, the resident or business owner can be cited. Also, if an alarm system has two or more false alarms within a consecutive 365-day period residents or business owners will be subject to fines and/or placed on a “No Response List.”
“The Beaumont Police Department makes every effort to provide the best possible law enforcement service to all segments of our community. Reducing the number of false alarms will help to achieve this end,” the department states.
Officials are encouraging citizens who use an alarm system to file a permit with the city and have alarms serviced or tested to avoid getting cited.
