It's not yet an ordinance, but false fire alarms may soon start costing businesses with chronically faulty alarm systems.
That was the consensus of the Ordinance Committee as it met before Monday's meeting of the Paragould City Council.
"We have some industries in Paragould that have had a lot of false alarms," said committee chair Jeremy Biggs to open the meeting. "And the average cost to the city is $700 per response."
Adding the city is drafting an ordinance to address the situation, Biggs said the aim is to give companies with chronically faulty alarms systems three chances to correct the problem.
"After that," he said, "it will cost $500 per false alarm."
"It would be a fee for services," added Paragould Fire Chief Kevin Lang.
"We pay our firefighters to respond whether the alarm is real or not," added Paragould Mayor Mike Gaskill. "And there are a number of companies that have had several [false alarms]."
"And there is also the wear and tear on the vehicles, the gas and the oil they use and their tires," said Lang. "The bottom line is to get the industries into compliance."