GILROY
– It’s time to make sure that burglar alarm is fine-tuned and
that you know how to operate it correctly: the financial
consequences of having it go off unnecessarily are now more
severe.
GILROY – It’s time to make sure that burglar alarm is fine-tuned and that you know how to operate it correctly: the financial consequences of having it go off unnecessarily are now more severe.
Property or business owners with burglar alarms within the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s jurisdiction still won’t be charged for their first false alarm. But after a vote by county supervisors last week, any subsequent false alarms over the next 12 months’ time will now cost the owner $100 instead of the current $50.
The new fee will allow the department to more fully recover the costs of responding to false alarms, officials said.
The office currently responds to all police alarm calls, with two deputies dispatched to each call.
The number of false alarms within Sheriff’s jurisdiction have probably doubled within the last three years, said Cindy Codrinton, who collects the data for the Sheriff’s office. She estimated the department will receive 600 to 700 false alarms within a calendar year.
“It is a big problem,” Codrinton said. “They’re within a lot of residences. It’s user error a lot of the time…
“We’re just getting call after call … ”
Responding to such calls can also eat up more time for deputies, who often have to drive farther in their unincorporated rural jurisdictions – such as the Los Gatos mountains or Mt. Madonna area – to reach the origin of an alarm than a city officer. The journey itself can sometimes take up to an hour in remote areas, said Deputy Terrance Helm, a department spokesman.
Several police departments around the country have recently adopted “no response” policies for burglar alarms that mean that officers will only respond once the alarm’s authenticity is verified by the representative of a home or business.
The county and the city of Gilroy do not yet operate at that extreme. Gilroy levies a $125 fine after the third false alarm. After the seventh, the home or business is added to a “no response” list until all fines are paid and the alarm company outlines modifications.
