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.
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
or others that an emergency exists at the site of such installed alarm
requiring an immediate response from a police or fire agency. This
chapter does not apply to state, county, town, Village and school
buildings or alarms.
As used in this chapter the following terms shall have the following
meaning:
AVOIDABLE FALSE ALARM
Any false alarm reported or 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.
INSTALLED ALARM
Any mechanical or electrical device installed in a building
or on premises for the purpose of automatically notifying, directly
or indirectly, police or fire agencies or sounding an alarm when a
break-in or fire occurs and used for the purpose of summoning help
from police or fire agencies.