posted on Friday, September 05, 2008 9:29 AM
by
klehan
Fontana, CA, Council Meeting for Alarm Law is on 9/9/08
An urgency amendment to Fontana's burglar alarm ordinance was deemed non-urgent by the City Council at a meeting in August when council members agreed to let the agenda item go through standard procedure before deciding on whether or not to adopt the change in policy.
The ordinance is scheduled to be introduced once again at the Sept. 9 meeting.
The Fontana Police Department changed the way it had for years been responding to alarms in the city when on Oct. 1, 2007, it switched to a Verified Response to deal with an increasing number of false burglar alarms in the city.
But a court ruling in May that stemmed from a lawsuit involving the Inland Empire Alarm Association determined the department must change its policy.
“We really look at this ordinance and go, ‘This is nothing we've ever seen before,” said Bryan Matthews, public relations counsel for the Dallas, Texas-based Security Industry Alarm Coalition.
He said Security Industry is a national organization that reviews many burglar alarm policies and that Fontana's is unique.