Sounding the Alarm

Fire Truck on the GoLast week we received a notice from the City of Hartford. It is time to renew our house alarm registration with the City’s Department of Emergency Services and Telecommunications.

Residents of Hartford are required to register their alarm with the municipality. We pay $15 per year, which not only gets us into the systems, but also buys us free emergency responses for the first two false alarms within a 12 month period.

There is no policing of the registration in Hartford, but if the City responds to a call and discovers a non-permitted alarm there is the potential for a $99 fine for not registering, on top of the $90 fine if the emergency turns out to be a false alarm.

Other towns have their own laws, so the rules do vary throughout the region. For example, the Glastonbury Alarm Ordinance requires an annual registration with an initial $25 fee and then $10 per year to renew. Glastonbury also fines for frequent false alarms, though they have escalating fine amounts instead of Hartford’s flat rates.