North Battleford city council is looking to address the issue of responding to an excess number of false alarms in the city.
To that end, a false alarm bylaw has been drafted and was presented at the City’s Planning Committee meeting Monday.
There is an alarm monitoring bylaw in the city, but according to a memo to council from Director of Legislative Services Debbie Wohlberg, dated March 12, the bylaw has been difficult to administer and enforce.
The number of false alarms emergency personnel respond to has been an issue raised at council for some time. In that March 12 memo, City Manager Jim Puffalt noted there are over 700 false alarms on an annual basis requiring a response from the RCMP.
A draft of the new bylaw includes these provisions: a requirement all installed alarm systems be registered with the City, setting a registration fee to cover administrative costs of data base set up, putting the onus on alarm owners to be responsible for their alarm systems; setting a series of increased fines for alarm owners who repetitively require response as a result of a false alarm; and defining the requirements of the City, alarm owners and alarm monitoring companies.
The draft fine schedule calls for a letter of caution to the alarm owner and company following the first alarm; a $200 fine with the second false alarm occurrence, a $500 fine for the third occurrence and $750 and a letter requesting alarm deactivation following a fourth occurrence.
The plan now is to introduce the bylaw for first reading at the next regular council meeting March 23.
