Village of Bellevue, WI Chapter 162 Alarm Devices

[HISTORY: Adopted by the Bellevue Board 4-14-2010 (Ch. 23 of the 1998 Code); amended in its entirety at time of adoption of Code (see Ch. 1, General Provisions, Art. II). Subsequent amendments noted where applicable.]

GENERAL REFERENCES

Fire Department — See Ch. 53.

Police protection — See Ch. 101.

§ 162-1 Definitions.

For the purpose of this chapter, the following definitions shall apply:

ALARM DEVICE

Any device which, when activated by a criminal act, fire or other emergency calling for law enforcement officers or Fire Department response, transmits a signal to the County Sheriff's Office or Fire Department headquarters via the dispatch center; transmits a signal to a person who relays information to the County Sheriff's Office or Fire Department dispatch center; and may produce an audible or visible signal to which the law enforcement officers or Fire Department is expected to respond. Excluded from this definition and the scope of this chapter are devices which are designed to alert or signal only persons within the premises in which the device is installed.

ALARM USER

An owner of any premises in which an alarm device is used, or an occupant who expressly accepts responsibility for an alarm device by registration.

AUTOMATIC DIAL ALARM

A telephone device or attachment that mechanically or electronically selects a telephone line to County Sheriff's Office or Fire Department dispatch or to the 911 system and reproduces a prerecorded voice message to report a criminal act, fire or other emergency calling for law enforcement officers or Fire Department response. Excluded from this definition are devices which relay messages in the event of a medical emergency such as medic alert devices or remote pendant help assist devices.

CENTRAL STATION

An office to which remote alarm devices transmit signals where operators monitor those signals and relay information to the County Sheriff's Office and Fire Department.

CONTRACTOR

Any person, firm or corporation in the business of supplying and installing alarm devices or servicing the same.

FALSE ALARM

Any activation of an alarm device to which the County Sheriff's Office or Fire Department responds and which is not caused by a criminal act, fire or other emergency. False alarms include equipment malfunction, water flow alarms without cause, burglar alarms without any cause, and mischievous functioning of panic alarms, fire pull stations, or burglar alarms. All determinations of false alarms will be based upon the report of the investigating law enforcement officer or fire officer.

§ 162-2 Exterior audible devices.

Unless required by law, such as in sprinkler system installation, no alarm device which produces an exterior audible signal shall be installed unless its operation is automatically restricted to a maximum of 10 minutes.

§ 162-3 Monitoring of alarm systems.

All alarm systems, regardless of whether or not they are police, burglary, panic or fire systems, must be monitored by an outside monitoring service. No alarm system auto dial function can be directed to dial the County Sheriff's Office or Fire Department nonemergency administrative telephone numbers. Alarm systems cannot just alarm internally without external monitoring and notification of the alarm to authorities. A variance to this can be given only for such systems where a twenty-four-hour guard or other staffing is present. Such variance requests must be submitted, in writing, to the Village of Bellevue, Attn. Public Safety Alarm Variance Request. All requests must in detail explain the reason for the variance request.

§ 162-4 Tenant responsibility.

The tenant shall be responsible for:

A. Maintaining and testing, in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions, smoke alarms that are within the dwelling unit during the term of the tenancy.

B. Notifying the owner, in writing, if a smoke alarm becomes inoperable. The owner shall have five days from receipt of such written notice to repair and replace the inoperable alarm(s). Any smoke alarms which are powered with standard batteries which are found to be inoperable shall be replaced by the owner with smoke alarms meeting the requirements of this chapter.

§ 162-5 Reporting of false alarms.

The County Sheriff's Office and Fire Department shall report false alarms to the Finance Department. An alarm is false if upon arrival there is no emergency or there is no situation in which someone mistakenly thought an emergency was or had occurred.

§ 162-6 Charges for false alarms and fees for service.

A. Fees for false alarms will be charged when a response occurs for the same alarm cause, meaning same burglar alarm door, same fire sensor or area, or same problem on a repeat basis. The purpose of these fees is as a deterrent for alarm owners to use and maintain their systems with proper care.

B. When the Chief of the Department determines that the County Sheriff's Office or Fire Department has responded to a false alarm more than one time, the Village shall impose a charge on the responsible alarm user according to the following schedule:

(1) For the first false alarm within the fiscal year: no charge.

(2) For response by either the County Sheriff's Office or the Fire Department:

(a) The second false alarm: as shown on fee schedule.

(b) The third false alarm: as shown on fee schedule.

(c) The fourth false alarm: fee charged for emergency calls as noted under § 53-6 for the Fire Department and as shown on fee schedule for police.

(3) For false alarms after the fourth offense, a charge equal to the cost of the response as noted under § 53-6 and to a fee as shown on the fee schedule.

C. For certain life safety situations as defined by state law, the Fire Department may use additional enforcement actions given it by both local ordinance and state statute.

§ 162-7 Notification of charges.

A. The Village shall notify the responsible alarm user of any false alarm charge by mail. Within 30 days after the mailing of such notice, the alarm user may file with the Village, to Attn. Alarm Appeal Process, information to show that the alarm was not a false alarm within the meaning of this chapter.

B. The Village shall consider such information, reaffirm or rescind the false alarm charge and notify the alarm user of its decision by mail.

C. Any fees payable to the Village which are delinquent shall be assessed against the property involved as a special charge for current services rendered, without notice, pursuant to § 66.0627, Wis. Stats.

[Added 11-11-2015 by Ord. No. O-2015-10]

§ 162-8 Security alarm information to be confidential.

[Amended 12-9-2020 by Ord. No. O-2020-20]

All information in the possession of the Village and/or County Sheriff's Office concerning particular alarm users and particular alarm devices shall not be divulged without the written consent of the alarm user or users concerned, except that information as to the frequency of false alarms experienced by an individual alarm user may be supplied to the contractor who installed or who currently has a contract to service that user's alarm device, or as a public record request. The Village will consider all security alarm information except type of alarm or frequency to be sensitive and not subject to public record release.

§ 162-9 Violations and penalties.

Except as otherwise provided, any person found in violation of this chapter or any order, rule or regulation made hereunder shall be subject to the penalty provided in § 1-4 of the Code of the Village of Bellevue.