GILROY
– Crying wolf has never been so taxing for the city of
Gilroy.
GILROY – Crying wolf has never been so taxing for the city of Gilroy.
As the city’s number of homes and commercial business has steadily climbed during the last decade, so have the amount of false burglar alarms – leaving taxpayers paying the bill for police resources drained by the false reports, several police officials said.
“This really becomes an issue because we send two officers to every alarm call, and they can be there from anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes securing the area,” said Gilroy Police Department spokeswoman Capt. Debbie Moore. “It’s a waste of valuable personnel and time.”
Last year 1,400 different homes and businesses in Gilroy registered false alarms with the GPD – up 150 from the year before, said Monica Souza, a crime analyst for the GPD.
And with a nightly police force which on some nights is as small as five officers, it is not uncommon that the majority of the force could be investigating false alarms during a given shift, Moore said.
“The large majority (of all alarm calls) are false,” Moore said, unable to give an exact percentage. “Most are in commercial or industrial areas, where a rodent might set off the motion sensor when it runs under a small opening from a roll-up door.
“Usually it’s something simple to fix, so we try to put the responsibility on the alarm owner.”
Gilroy is not the only city looking for ways to reduce the plague of false alarms by putting the responsibility on the alarm owners.
Several cities’ police departments across the country have recently adopted “no response” policies to burglar alarms – meaning they will only respond once the alarm’s authenticity is verified by a representative of the home or business – but Gilroy isn’t ready to take it to that extreme yet.
Instead, the city will continue to enforce its false alarm policy that’s been in place since 1990.
Under the policy, once a business or home records a third false alarm with the GPD they will start to be fined $125 for each additional false alarm until the seventh. After the seventh false alarm, the home or business will then be put on the GPD’s “no response” list until all fines are paid and a written letter from the alarm company outlining modifications to the alarm system is received.
There are approximately 12 Gilroy businesses and homes with “no response” status; all money from the fines goes to the general revenue fund for the city, Moore said.
“I think the current policy is strict enough, and I’m happy with it,” Councilman Craig Gartman said. “It’s too dangerous to assume the alarm is false and not respond – especially if that company or home has no history of false alarms.”
But Souza said that Gilroy can only expect more false alarm calls in the future as new homes continue to be built and businesses continue to flock to town.
“Human error is the biggest problem,” she said. “When new businesses open, employees are not trained well enough and this is what accounts for many of the false alarm calls. I don’t even want to think about when all the new businesses come to Highway 152 and U.S. 101.”
Maura Agen, spokeswoman for the 145-store Gilroy Premium Outlets, acknowledged that some alarm systems can be complicated for many employees to handle, but said Gilroy’s policy should not change.
“I know (false alarms) is a problem increasing across the country,” she said, “but I don’t think a non-response policy helps anybody… It’s a difficult position for the Gilroy Police Department, but this policy seems to make sense.”
And even though the number of false alarms in Gilroy are continuing to increase, Moore said the GPD’s policy is working.
“Most people respond to the letters and once a company gets to ‘no response’ they seem to make the necessary changes,” Moore said. “More calls will come with growth, but our policy is not going to change.”
