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Waynesboro, VA, City Council Rejects Fines for False Alarms

Waynesboro, VA, police will not begin fining property owners whose security alarm systems are set off too often.

City Council decided to reject a proposal Monday that would create a new ordinance to fine alarm owners who trigger a certain number of false alarms in a one-year span. The levy's intention was to reduce the number of false burglar and panic alarms, freeing police officers to do other work.

Police Chief Doug Davis said his department responded to 633 false alarms last year. When council first discussed the proposal in January, he said the 633 false alarms wasted 292 man hours — about 28 minutes per call.

Although council members praised the idea of pushing residents to prevent false alarms, the officials said they were not comfortable with adding a fee schedule to the ordinance.

"I don't want to do anything to build on the bureaucracy," Mayor Tim Williams said. "But I do want to build on the education aspect of it and talk to offenders. And in a years time, if we are still seeing problems, we can see if something needs to be done."

Council, however, did reach a consensus to look into another part of the proposed ordinance that would require owners to register their alarms with the city. Davis said this would help police get the proper contact information of the alarm owners when one is set off.

Council instructed City Attorney Todd Patrick to draft an ordinance that would require the alarms to be registered. Council did not decide if this then would require a small fee to cover the costs for the city to handle the registration process.