By WILL PERKINS
Glasgow News 1
Glasgow might begin enforcing a false-alarm ordinance as early as Aug. 1, but members of the Glasgow Common Council Public Safety Committee voted to table the idea for additional research and discussion.
When speaking about the proposed ordinance during a special-called meeting Wednesday evening, committee members collectively expressed their concern for the public having plenty of notice before facing any fines.
“I would think the people would deserve some kind of notification now if this is coming into effect,” councilman Freddie Norris said. “Because most people procrastinate on things.”
The ordinance would have to pass two votes of the full Glasgow Common Council to be enacted.
Glasgow Police Chief Guy Howie said to help ease those concerns there would be three warnings before the first fine of $50, and informational letters about the ordinance would be sent to those who have false alarms before the proposed August start date.
Howie had previously brought up the idea of having a false-alarm ordinance during a recent regular meeting of the committee, reporting that there were over 1,300 false alarms last year, and that this would encourage businesses and homeowners to better maintain their alarm systems, which would help conserve the resources of emergency responders.
During Wednesday’s discussion, Norris asked if committee members could get a list of last year’s false alarms to see potential patterns, and the group eventually voted to table the ordinance until after they had a chance to look at that information.
When asked if the city could send out letters to everyone using an alarm system, Howie said such a list does not exist.
“The problem with that is we don’t know everybody that has alarms because they’re not required to register them,” he said. “The only way we know who has alarms is when they go off and we respond to them.”
Howie reported that the Glasgow Police Department spent 524 hours responding to false alarms last year.
Councilman James “Happy” Neal said the committee should explore other options before enacting an ordinance with fines.
“There’s got to be another way,” Neal said, later adding that he would like to look at the list of last year’s false alarms before making a decision.
Howie said he has researched several cities smaller than Glasgow that have found success using similar ordinances.
“These ordinances work,” Howie said. “This isn’t designed to be a money-generating ordinance. This ordinance is designed to get people to maintain their alarm systems and train their employees.”
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