City officials aren’t collecting fines for false burglar and fire alarms despite state laws and city codes that require penalties after at least the fourth and second respective false alarm is received from the same building.
According to city code, penalties range from $50 for a residence or commercial property’s third false burglar alarm to $500 for every alarm in excess of eight. The first four false fire alarms can occur at no charge. Every subsequent call should cost $75 for homes and $350 for commercial property.
Paul Leger, Pittsburgh’s director of finance, estimated the city receives between 300 and 400 false alarms per year.
False alarms can be a costly drain on city resources, Leger said.
“Every time there’s a false alarm there’s a police response, there’s a fire department response and there may be an EMS response as well,” he said. “That’s very expensive … and it also takes people away from any real fires or real crime.”
In effect since 1998, Pennsylvania state law requires a fine after at least the fourth time a false alarm is received from the same building in a 12-month period. Penalties result in a summary offense carrying a maximum fine of $300.
“Most [false alarms] are by institutions and large buildings,” Leger said. “It’s rare that an individual residence goes beyond one because most people simply handle that.”
Leger said the city’s law department is working on more lenient legislation that would fine users after the third instance rather than the second. The revised ordinance would be modeled after Philadelphia’s law, which penalizes residents between $150 and $300 per false alarm, according to Philadelphia code.
Pittsburgh City Council is scheduled to take a preliminary vote Wednesday on a bill that would allow residences and businesses to apply for permits for fire and burglar alarms online through a contract with Texas-based information technology company PMAM.
PMAM software would issue permits and provide tracking and billing services. Leger said the company could also impose and collect fines for false alarms going forward.
Pittsburgh's existing software "is in pretty bad shape and needs to be replaced,” he said. Leger said the upgrade would save time and resources for the city’s clerks, who currently handle the process manually.
