The four stations in the North Cowichan fire department responded to 99 alarm calls from residents and businesses over a three-month period, from June to September this year, with 89 of them turning out to be false.
Fire chief Ron French told North Cowichan’s council at its meeting on Oct. 16 in his quarterly report that the fire department has been trying to get a handle on the high amount of false-alarm calls it is responding to, which has resulted in fines of $500 for repeat offenders after the department has received three false alarms from the home or business.
He said that 17 fines have been levied, and 13 warning letters sent out to those who were close to three false alarms.
“We’re starting to get a lot of feedback from them,” French said. “Some are very difficult and I have some sympathy for those businesses in that they have people in their buildings just pulling alarm bells and walking out of the door and they’re getting fined for multiple alarms. But they’ll have to figure out a way to manage their systems and how they can control that.”
French said some of the businesses look at it as the cost of doing business and are not worried about it, but the $500 fines are quite hefty every time they have three false alarms.
“So we’re trying to do our best to manage that and make sure we’re doing what we need to do,” he said.
Coun. Tek Manhas said a number of business owners have talked to him about the false-alarm issue in their buildings.
He said a lot of the time, people will just shake the doors of the businesses and the alarm will go off automatically.
“It’s usually the homeless, and the businesses have to pay for the charges due to these false alarms,” Manhas said. “I think that’s unfair because it’s the result of what senior levels of government have done to us with their policies and our businesses actually have to pay for the consequences.”