Salt Lake County Council to vote on false-alarm fines

Tripping a false alarm at a Salt Lake County home or business could cost you.

The Salt Lake County Council is expected to vote today on an ordinance that fines home and business owners for false alarms.

"The purpose of this ordinance is to protect the emergency services of the county from misuse," the ordinance reads. "The occurrence of false alarms in the county causes significant unwarranted expense through responses to false alarms."

False alarms are so common in the county that local governments, like Salt Lake City, ignore the alerts. Salt Lake County doesn't want to outright stop responding to calls.

Instead, home and business owners will be charged $50 after the third false alarm. Any false alarm call after that will result in a $100 fine.

"Nobody wants to pay false alarm fines," said Bill LaRochelle, president of the Utah Alarm Association. "It sure gets everybody's attention. It gets the thing fixed, and that's what we all want. Nobody wants alarm systems that cause false alarms."

Fines must be paid within 30 days. If not, a 10 percent fee will be applied to the original fine.

Several cities across the Wasatch Front have similar false alarm ordinances. Sandy, West Jordan and South Jordan false alarm rates have all decreased since such ordinances were approved, LaRochelle said.

Salt Lake City Police refuse to respond to tripped alarms in homes and businesses. The city passed an ordinance in 2000 discontinuing the practice after police reported 99 percent of all electronically sounded alarms were actually false alarms.

Instead, alarm companies must dispatch private security officers to the scene of an alarm they detect going off.

"You've got untrained people out there responding to alarms, which I happen to think is the most unsafe thing in the world," LaRochelle said. "We don't want that to happen anywhere else."

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