The Supervisors find and declare that:
A. The majority of emergency alarms to which emergency personnel respond
are false. Such alarms are nuisances resulting in an enormous waste
of manpower and potentially causing serious injury to those police
officers or other emergency personnel who may be responding. Further,
when emergency personnel are responding to a false alarm, they are
not available to be protecting the citizens of Barrett Township.
B. The danger to citizens and emergency personnel created by nuisance
alarms is unnecessary and hazardous.
C. The unnecessary waste of tax dollars through responses to nuisance
alarms must be eliminated.
D. Nuisance alarms have created conditions causing danger and annoyance
to the general public.
As used in this chapter, the following terms shall have the
meanings indicated:
ALARM SYSTEM
Any device designed or used for detection of intrusion into
a building, structure or facility or for alerting persons in the attempt
or commission of a crime or any emergency situation involving potential
death or serious injury and which is directly connected to an audible
alarm or the transmission of a related signal or message which is
used to evoke an emergency response to any address or separate component
of any system.
NUISANCE ALARM
The activation of an alarm system due to other than the said
purpose for which the alarm system is designed. Any activation of
an alarm system caused by any malfunction caused by violent natural
catastrophic condition, including electrical storms or power outages
or conditions beyond the control of the permittee, will not constitute
a nuisance alarm. A nonemergent alarm, dispatching the Barrett Township
Volunteer Fire Company, that is not the result of a fire emergency
(i.e., cooking smoke, steam, fog dirt/dust, unmaintained heads and
other similar false activations).
The Fire Chief and/or the Assistant Fire Chief or other emergency departments will submit all incident reports to the Zoning Officer for enforcement action to be taken. Violations of this chapter shall be enforced by action brought before a Magisterial District Judge in the same manner provided for the enforcement of summary offenses under the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure. The Barrett Township Zoning Officer is hereby designated as a law enforcement officer for purposes of enforcement of this chapter. The owner of premises on which two or more nuisance alarms occur shall, upon conviction in a summary proceeding, be punishable by a fine as set forth in §
181-6 above.
All information furnished and secured pursuant to this chapter
shall be confidential in character and shall not be subject to public
inspection, and shall be so kept in order that the contents thereto
shall not be known except to persons charged with the administration
of this chapter.