It is the purpose of this chapter to protect
and promote the public health, safety and general welfare by eliminating
avoidable false fire and burglar alarms and thereby ensuring that
fire and police facilities and personnel will be available for actual
emergencies. False alarms unnecessarily drain resources and require
emergency responses which contribute to increased accident rates and
which delay responses to real emergencies.
[Amended 9-20-1999 by L.L. No. 4-1999]
This chapter applies to all installed fire and
burglar alarms which are directly connected to a police or fire agency
or to a private agency which, in turn, makes a connection to a police
or fire agency or to no agency but merely sounds an alarm on the premises,
each installed alarm having the purpose of notifying police and/or
fire agencies that an emergency exists at the site of such installed
alarm requiring an immediate response from such police or fire agency.
This chapter does not apply to state, county, town, public school
and Village buildings.
As used in this chapter, the following terms
shall have the meanings as indicated:
AVOIDABLE FALSE ALARM
Any false alarm received by a local police or fire agency
from an installed alarm which is caused by improper installation of
the system, by a mechanical failure or malfunction of the system or
is due to negligence on the part of the owner, user, custodian or
other person responsible for the installed alarm. An avoidable false
alarm does not include an alarm activated by a natural phenomenon,
such as a tornado, earthquake or the like, or by acts of third parties
which are beyond control of the person responsible for the installed
alarm; all other false alarms are prima facie avoidable false alarms
prohibited by this chapter.
INSTALLED ALARM
Any mechanical or electrical device installed in a building
for the purpose of automatically notifying, directly or indirectly,
police or fire agencies when a break-in or fire occurs and used for
the purpose of summoning help from police or fire agencies.
No person shall operate, or cause to be operated,
an installed alarm in a manner that results in an avoidable false
alarm.