The Township Council of the Township of Willingboro hereby finds
and determines that:
A. The occupants of many residential and commercial establishments located
within the Township of Willingboro have found it desirable to make
provision for the installation upon their premises of alarm systems
for emergencies such as burglary and fire.
B. There have been a substantial number of false alarms associated with
the alarm systems which have been installed within the Township so
that the number of false alarms has resulted in a situation which,
if not remedied, will lead to an unnecessary drain upon the human
resources, time, space, facilities and finances of the Township, its
Police and Fire Departments and the deterioration of the quality service
provided to persons operating and relying upon alarm systems in the
Township.
C. The public interest, therefore, requires the enactment of rules,
regulations, standards and procedures to regulate and control the
installation and operation of alarm systems in the Township.
This chapter has as its purpose the regulating and control of
the installation, operation and maintenance of private alarm systems
within the Township in order to ensure that the quality of alarm services
rendered to the public will be maintained at a high level and to alleviate
conditions otherwise leading to an unnecessary drain on the human
resources, time, space, facilities and finances of the Township of
Willingboro and its Police and Fire Departments.
The provisions of this chapter shall apply to any person, other
than the Township of Willingboro, who sells, installs, operates, maintains
or owns any alarm device or local alarm designed to summon the Police
Department, Fire Department or other municipal agency to any location
in response to any type of alarm signal.
As used in this chapter, the following terms shall have the
meanings indicated:
ALARM BUSINESS
Any business operated by a person, partnership, corporation,
etc., for profit which engages in the activity of altering, installing,
leasing, maintaining, repairing, replacing, selling, servicing or
responding to a fire or burglar alarm system, or which causes any
of these activities to take place. Excluded from this definition,
however, are retail establishments which sell alarm systems over the
counter and do not service those systems.
ALARM DEVICE
Any type of alarm activating equipment which provides warning
of burglary, intrusion, fire, flood or like peril.
ALARM SYSTEM
The installation in one or more buildings of one or more
alarm devices for the express purpose of giving visual and/or audible
warning or an emergency such as burglary, intrusion, fire, flood or
like peril.
ALARM USER
Any person, firm, partnership, association, corporation,
company or organization of any kind in control of any building, structure
or facility wherein an alarm device or system is maintained.
FALSE ALARM
An alarm signal eliciting a response by police or firefighters
or other public officials when a situation requiring a response by
police or firefighters or other public officials does not in fact
exist (but excluding an alarm signal caused by violent conditions
of nature or other extraordinary circumstances not reasonably subject
to control by the alarm business or alarm user).
INDEPENDENT SMOKE DETECTOR
A device giving an audible alarm indicating smoke and/or
fire within a structure and not connected to an alarm system or to
any external sounding device outside of the structure.
There is hereby established a one-time fee for the registration of alarm systems as provided in §
150-10C, which shall be payable on the initial filing of any registration form.
All information submitted in compliance with this chapter shall
be held in the strictest confidence and shall be deemed a record exempt
from public disclosure. Any violation of confidentiality shall be
deemed a violation of this chapter.
The provisions of this chapter shall not apply to any alarm
system installed on property occupied by any Township, county, state
or federal government agency or office, nor to an independent smoke
detector as defined in this chapter.
Any person who intentionally causes the giving of a false alarm shall be in violation of this chapter and subject to a penalty as provided in Chapter
1, Article
II, General Penalty.