Michigan's Plainfield Township is another in a growing list of cities find that increases in burglar-alarm using households often leads to increased numbers of false alarms.
As reported in The Grand Rapid's Press, the township's board has recently approved an ordinance for the township, located near Grand Rapids, that will require payment of fines for excessive false alarm calls. The new ordinance puts into place a system that fines alarm owners if there systems give false alerts of more than three in 90 days, or more than four in six months, or more than five in 12 months. The fee schedule is fairly simple: $50 fine for first offense for residential users, and $100 for each additional false alarm.
The ordinance does have clauses that prevent alarm owners from being fined if the false alert was due to electrical interference, such as from a passing storm or from electrical of phone service outages, or if they are able to alert the police that the call is false before the officers respond.
The ordinance will be effective on Jan. 1, 2006.
