Mesa, Arizona Implements Alarm Ordinance

At a June 20 meeting of the Mesa, Arizona, city council, a new alarm ordinance was approved. The ordinance, which is expected to be implemented later this summer, will deal with false alarms from security systems.

According to the new ordinance, the first false alarm will bring with it a $50 fine, the second will cost $100, and subsequent false alarms will each rise by $50, up through the seventh alarm.

Alarm system owners will be able to have the first $50 fine waived if they attend an alarm awareness program. The earlier ordinance gave two free false alarms per year, and allowed any subsequent false alarm fees the ability to be waived with the attendance of one of the alarm awareness classes.

Reported statistics included 16,678 security alarm calls in 2004 (98.5 percent were false alerts).