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Bristol, TN, City Council Approves New Penalties for False Alarms

The Bristol, TN, City Council approved new penalties on false alarms that summon police more than three times a year.

Mayor David Shumaker was the only dissenter in the 4 to 1 vote, which amends the city’s present ordinance that penalizes those locations where electronic security systems activate falsely more than three times a month or eight times a year.

“If you have more than three false alarms a year there will be a fee,” Shumaker said. “I voted against it because the ordinance does not set the penalty amounts, and I’m kind of a stickler for having things spelled out in advance.”

Shumaker’s vote is not an indication of his opposition to the ordinance on the whole, he said. 

Council members have discussed penalty fees, such as $25 for the first violation – or, fourth time police are unnecessarily summoned – $50 for the second and $75 for the third. But Tuesday’s vote did not address fees.
The changes in the ordinance were recommended by Police Chief Blaine Wade and City Manager Jeffrey Broughton.

Last week, Wade said the current ordinance is “extremely lenient.” He also said police and fire departments in 2008 responded to 1,461 alarms, of which only 201 had “any significance.”

Shumaker said that “75 percent of folks who have alarm systems have no problem. It’s just a handful of folks who have problems with false alarms going off 30 or 40 times a year, so it’s those folks we’re targeting to get them to fix their alarms.”
He added, “It’s a never cry wolf thing.”