False burglar alarm law in the works

A Slidell City Council member would like to see fewer false burglar alarms in the city and is working on legislation to beef up the current burglar alarm ordinance.

Councilman Lionel Hicks said not only are false alarms a waste of time and manpower for the Slidell Police Department, they are also a nuisance for some residents in his district.

Several months ago, Hicks said he got a call from one of his constituents on Pinetree Street who complained the burglar alarm for a business that abutted his back yard kept going off, waking up the man and his family. After some research, Hicks discovered police had responded to many false alarms at the business.

Further research showed Slidell police officers were responding to a high number of false burglar alarms all over town.

“In the month of July, the police department responded to 450 false alarms,” Hicks said.

A former police officer with 30 years of service, Hicks said false burglar alarms have been a thorn in the side of Slidell police for a long time.

“Every false alarm ties up two units that could be out patrolling the streets,” Hicks said.

Plus, in these days of high gasoline prices, that costs the police department money in extra fuel costs, not to mention wear and tear on vehicles, he said.

“It’s always been a problem,” Slidell Police Department spokesman Capt. Kevin Foltz said.

Recently, Slidell Police Chief Freddie Drennan agreed that something must be done, and he backed Hicks’ plan to beef up the city’s current false burglar alarm law.

In the Slidell Code of Ordinances, under Section 12.1, paragraph e, a person can be fined up to $50 if the police respond to more than six false alarms. A letter of warning is sent to the alarm user if there are one to five false alarms in a calendar year.

Hicks would like to have the ordinance amended to mirror the St. Tammany Parish’s ordinance on false burglar alarms.

The parish ordinance, passed in May 2006, allows only three false alarms before any fines are levied against the alarm user.

Between four and five false alarms, there is a $25 fine, which goes up to $50 for six to seven responses to a false alarm and then $75 for up to nine false alarms.

If a business or residence has 10 or more false alarms, deputies will not respond. The fines and threat of no police response has had an effect.

The number of false alarms has decreased, according to Lt. Fred Escher of the St. Tammany Sheriff’s Office. He has been tracking the false alarms since the ordinance was passed.

“It has made a big difference,” Escher said. “Before the ordinance, we responded to a lot of false alarms, and we found most were due to mechanical errors.”

The Sheriff’s Office sat down with alarm companies to address problematical alarm systems and the companies agreed to fix the problems.

“They were very cooperative, and so were the alarm users. We’ve had great reception,” Escher said. “The ordinance has been a big asset to the Sheriff’s Office.”

He said the parish ordinance is modeled after a similar law in New Orleans.

Hicks said some false alarms are weather-related or due to power blackouts, but he and Foltz said most false alarms are due to operator error. Foltz said most false alarms occur in commercial sites where the employees have not set the alarm properly.

Whatever the reason for the large number of false burglar alarms, Hicks thinks it is time to hold people accountable, allow residents more quiet nights and let the police do a more effective job.

“We just have to put some teeth to our ordinance,” Hicks said.