Willow Glen Resident
News
False alarms will cost businesses more money
By Stephen Baxter
Fines will rise for businesses that trigger repeated false fire alarms, the San Jose City Council decided Oct. 2.
Penalties for false alarms now set at $25 will jump to as much as $1,000 on Dec. 1 to prod business owners to fix broken alarm systems. There is no fine for the first and second time a business' fire alarm trips without reason, but a third false alarm in 90 days will incur fines that start at $350 and could go up to $1,000 under the new law. A third residential false alarm will come with a $100 price tag and grow with fourth and fifth alarms.
"We keep going to these false alarms, and we're wasting our resources. It's like crying wolf," said San Jose Fire Chief Darryl Von Raesfeld.
Fire officials said some San Jose companies have found it easier to pay small fines than to fix their alarms, and the city's code enforcement department has been swamped with repeat offenders. The fire department says more than 4,800 false alarms were recorded in San Jose in 2002-03, and the figure has grown in recent years.
Fire officials said the changed law does not target homeowners whose smoke detectors sound when cooking goes or when a fire alarm is pulled in a school.
"We're not interested in those kinds of people, because the system worked properly," said James Dobson, a fire department hazardous materials inspector who helped craft the new law. "If a system is malfunctioning and it's not being fixed because of the cost, we want to give them an incentive," he said.
Under the old system, the city gave criminal citations to problem businesses. Courts were clogged, and some companies still took up to a year to fix their alarms.
In July, the fire department sent letters to the San Jose Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to gather input on the proposal and the higher fines. Fire officials said shops that did not update their alarm systems had an unfair economic advantage over those that complied. Also, companies that skirted the law put surrounding businesses in an unnecessary fire risk, the letter stated.
Because the new rules swap possible jail time with larger fines, many business leaders support the change.
Firefighters said the Center for Employment Training at 701 Vine St. has had alarms go off several times in the last year.
Yvette Galindo, the center's human relations director, said some neighborhood children have pulled alarms.
The center, which enrolls more than 200 vocational students, holds monthly fire drills where 600 people have exited in six minutes. Still, the building is large and can be hard to patrol.
The new law also will touch other types of businesses, including companies that use hazardous materials but don't secure permits or fail to update their hazardous materials inventory and management plans. Von Raesfeld said companies in South San Jose that deal with gasoline or chemicals, for example, will now have incentives to get up to code.
"If [chemicals] are not stored properly, they're a hazard," he said.
For more information, visit the San Jose Fire Department's Bureau of Fire Prevention website at www.sjfd.org/FirePrev/bfp_ index.htm.
