Sand Springs City Council approves new ordinance relating to false alarms

By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief

The Sand Springs City Council unanimously passed Ordinance 1289 at their regular monthly meeting Monday Night. The ordinance regulates excessive false intrusion or fire alarms. The ordinance, backed by Police Chief Mike Carter, seeks to reduce the number of false alarms that the Sand Springs Police and Fire Departments respond to.

Unlike many cities in the Tulsa Metro area, Sand Springs does not currently regulate alarm operations. According to the report, “most alarm activations in the city limits of Sand Springs are false in nature, and are not indicative of true emergencies…the false alarms create a nuisance upon the peace of the community and take public safety officials away from other responsibilities.”

The ordinance will require all audible alarm users to adjust their system in a manner that will allow it to sound for no longer than fifteen minutes before resetting and silencing itself.

“All fire alarms activated within the City of Sand Springs, in all commercial businesses, or establishments open to the public, shall not be manually silenced by the property owner until in the presence of a member of the Sand Springs Fire Department, or their designee.

“It shall be an offense for any property owner to allow for an intrusion, hold-up, panic or fire alarm system operating on their property to have an excessive amount of false alarms. An excessive amount of false alarms shall be defined as more than 3 false alarms in a 30 day period.” After the third false alarm, the property owner will receive a notice granting 14 days to show proof from the alarm company that their system has been repaired. “Failure to show proof will result in the property being placed on a non-response list with the police department. The property owner will be obligated to show the system has been repaired in order to be removed from the list.”