FAIRHOPE, Ala. - The Fairhope City Council is expected to vote on an ordinance this month that would regulate residential and commercial burglar alarms within the police and fire jurisdiction and impose penalties upon those responsible for repeat false alarms.

Typically the Fairhope Police Department sends two officers to respond to a burglar alarm, who then must confirm the alarm and check the premises. Chief Bill Press told the Council during a hearing last week that his officers responded to around 1,000 alarms last year, the majority of which were false.

“It’s extremely dangerous for police officers and leads to complacency,” Press told the Council last week, “if the same alarm goes off time and time and time again, officers tend to relax, as if to say ‘don’t worry about it, I’ll handle this,’ when they’ve responded to the same alarm up to six times in a week.

“Not only does it take a lot of man hours to respond, but it could put officers or citizens in danger,” he said.

The ordinance as written, which Press said mirrors other municipalities in Baldwin County, includes provisions for registering alarms with the police department annually, mandating that alarms be equipped with a backup power supply, and imposing fines upon faulty alarm owners who fail to register or are responsible for four or more false alarms per registration period.

Fines would range from $50 for a first violation to $200 for a sixth violation. Failure to pay could lead to termination of the police department’s service to that address. There would be no cost to register an alarm unless the department responds to a false alarm at an unregistered location, at which point a $25 registration fee would be imposed. But Press implied that the department was not trying to earn money from false alarms.

“We don’t want to earn a penny,” Press said. “What we want is people to fix their alarm systems so we don’t waste or jeopardize the manpower. False alarms are generally caused by faulty systems or user error and we want people to rectify the problems.”

As defined by the draft ordinance, a false alarm means “a signal from a burglar alarm system that elicits a response by the police when no emergency or actual or threatened criminal activity requiring immediate response exists.” Press said false alarms can be caused by mechanical or electrical failure, negligence, accident, some pets or wildlife and storms, among other things.

“It is very unusual for a properly installed, monitored and maintained alarm system to send out a false alarm,” Press said. Council members recommended adding the ordinance to the next City Council agenda, Monday, July 11.