Council passed an amendment to the fees and charges bylaw July 18 so that owners of properties where fire alarms take place will be charged if there's more than one false alarm at their property. The second false alarm immediately costs $200, the third $300 and $400 for each alarm after that.
Previously, an annual fee was collected for false fire alarms from all businesses in the district, but that's being removed.
The goal, said Fire Chief Jim Cook, is to lower the number of false alarms through educating people and charging user-fees for the cost of sending out fire officials to each false alarm.
Last year there were 597 false alarms in the district, with numbers as high as 687 in 2009, causing a significant drain on fire resources.
