Free market fire alarm monitoring threatened
The fire alarm monitoring market in Illinois is under siege by some municipal governments, and it could be a harbinger for a nationwide legal battle for alarm dealers and central station monitoring companies.
On Aug. 23, Schaumburg, Ill., a village of nearly 75,000 people in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago, passed ordinance 16-078 that deems Northwest Central Dispatch System – a government entity – as the only provider of commercial fire alarm system monitoring in the community. According to the ordinance, state-licensed private alarm contractors must surrender their customers to Northwest Central Dispatch System once their contracts expire, and all new installations must go directly to the 911 center for monitoring.
This is very similar to a Bloomingdale, Ill., ordinance that is at the center of litigation in federal court now – specifically Alarm Detection Systems Inc. v. Bloomingdale Fire Protection District et al. As it stands, the litigation claims violation of the federal Civil Rights Act and antitrust claims under the Sherman Act.
Should municipal alarm monitoring monopolies become an acceptable practice in Illinois, alarm contractors and third-party monitoring providers across the country should be wary. Schaumburg calculated an addition of as much as $400,000 to the village’s general fund by adding the new rule. That kind of profit could signal to other municipalities that the alarm monitoring industry is ripe for government take-over.
“Not only is it a reckless decision to ‘create a municipal monopoly’ in the face of those facts, it is a terrible decision for Schaumburg’s 1,200 businesses that will not have to ability to keep their current service provider, use advanced technologies or shop for the best price,” says Kevin Lehan, Executive Director of the Illinois Electronic Security Association (IESA). “For alarm contractors in that community, losing those customers with a stroke of a pen could destroy those companies.”
The Illinois Alarm industry – led by the IESA – quickly mobilized to attempt to have the ordinance repealed, and more than 30 people showed up at a recent Coffee with the Counsel on a Saturday morning and again at the Village Board meeting a few days later. “Our message to the Schaumburg Trustees is that we asked them to understand more about this ordinance and to then repeal it,” Lehan says. “During the informal Coffee with the Counsel, several business owners came to express their displeasure, including an automobile dealership, a property management company and several shop owners.”
Lehan says that Schaumburg Fire Chief David A. Schumann cited impairments with fire alarm systems in the Village as the purpose for the ordinance. During a 15-month period, the Schaumburg Fire Department documented 31 issues with alarm and sprinkler systems, which Schumann said exceeded his comfort level. Lehan says the IESA is waiting for fulfillment of a Freedom of Information Act request to vet the issues Schumann spoke about; however, discussion with him and others from the village fire services indicate that these pertained to non-notification of systems being out of service for more than eight hours at a time.
“We have an understanding of what Chief Schumann wants from the private alarm industry,” Lehan says. “We agreed to meet again on Nov. 8, to demonstrate different ways the private alarm industry can make notifications, including daily push reports and even access to our databases to see what systems are in or out of service at any time.”
In a recent Daily Herald newspaper article about the ordinance, Chief Schumann said he will keep an open mind when reviewing these capabilities. Not only is the decision on the law still reversible, but companies have been given five years to comply out of respect for private contracts they may still need to be honored.
“Chief Schumann acknowledges that the impact to alarm contractors would be severe and he is open to seeing the many different ways the private alarm industry can satisfy any life safety issues he has,” Lehan says. “He is a reasonable man and I am confident that he was unaware of the reporting capabilities that the private alarm industry offers. We just wish he would have come to us first as we did not know there was a problem.
“Now that we know, it is fixed,” he adds. “It is now a matter of getting the ordinance repealed.”
Paul Rothman is Editor in Chief of Security Dealer & Integrator (SD&I) magazine. Access the current issue and full digital archives at www.secdealer.com.
