Miami Student

Issue date: 4/24/07 Section: Community

Under a new city ordinance, set to begin May 17, Oxford businesses will be required to register all fire and burglar alarm systems that dispatch OPD.

Some Oxford residents may experience new peace and quiet due to the city's most recent legislation fining those responsible for false fire and burglar alarms.

Set to go into effect May 17, the ordinance requires residents and businesses to register with the city all fire and burglar alarm systems that notify alarm call centers and dispatch Oxford police or fire personnel. In addition, all false alarms that are audible from neighboring properties must be registered. The ordinance requires that those registered must obtain an alarm user permit - $20 for residents and $25 for businesses - that must be renewed with a $10 fee each year prior to Jan. 10.

According to Oxford City Manager Jane Howington, the ordinance was formed in response to the heavy volume of false alarms each year.

Oxford Police Department (OPD) Sgt. Jim Squance echoed Howington's sentiments and said the amount of false alarms has slowly been rising each year.

"It's steadily been increasing over the years because more
people are going to alarm systems," Squance said.

Squance said the city experiences 500-600 alarms each year, and of them about 98 percent are false. Squance said false alarms include equipment and personal employee alarm errors in addition to alarms initiated with no emergency or threat.

In addition, Howington said because of the limited number of city officials, false alarms reduce the number of personnel able to respond to a real fire or burglar alarm.

"It was a constant problem," Howington said. "It's a present and ongoing problem for both burglar alarms and fire alarms. For both of those types of alarms, every time an alarm goes off, multiple public safety officials are dispatched to that site, which ties up our public safety officials for both police and fire for quite a bit of time."

Under the ordinance, Oxford residents and businesses will not receive a service fee for the first two false alarms per calendar year. For more than two false alarms, residents and businesses will receive a $50 service fee per false alarm. Furthermore, businesses that experience more than four false alarms will be charged $100 per alarm; more than six, $200 per alarm; and more than eight, $400 per alarm.

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