Police work on implementing law alarm ordinance

Law alarms are among the calls that keep officers the most busy.

Dispatch records show authorities have already responded to more than 1200 calls county wide since the beginning of the year.

Back in 2016, Columbia police said they alone responded to more than 3700 calls with only 1.7% considered valid.

On Wednesday, Chief Ken Burton said the department is working on an ordinance aimed at reducing the false alarm calls.

Burton says it would punish people if their alarms continuously malfunction for a non emergency.

Burton believes it should be implemented soon, but says creating the ordinance has been difficult.

“What happened in the city of Columbia is they had the fire alarm and the burglary alarm system in the same ordinance, they never should have been. So we got to get that ordinance changed so we can do it our way for the police and the burglar alarm side and the fire department is still satisfied with it.”

Police have not given an exact date on when the ordinance will be ready.