CARTHAGE, ILL. -- The Carthage City Council has approved an ordinance to deal with false fire and burglary alarms.
[Effective immediately, businesses will be allowed three emergency responses in a 12 month period.
On the fourth, the business will be fined $450.
This ordinance was spurred on after a summer of five false alarms which over-extended the city's all-volunteer fire department.
Some incidents involved system failures, on other occasions, no one from the business showed up to the scene to let firefighters in.
It also seems to be the same businesses involved.
Now the city is hoping this encourages businesses to fix the problems.
Why institute this new ordinance?
Gary Smith, Carthage Fire Chief and City Councilman said, "We were trying to be proactive. The fire department gets called out to nuisance alarms often enough it is like 'calling wolf' too many times. It's hard to get the guys to want to leave work or their homes to come take care of it. This gives us a way to bring it to the businesses to where they'll do something about it."
Carthage's Fire and police departments ask businesses to update their contact information in case of an emergency.
To do that the number to call is (217)357-2115.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forKHQA