COMMITTEE ENDORSES 'ONE STRIKE' FALSE ALARM FINE.

Byline: James Nash Staff Writer

Homeowners and businesses would be billed $115 for their first false burglar alarm in a year under a policy endorsed Monday by the Los Angeles City Council's Public Safety Committee.

Currently, two ``free'' false alarms in a year are allowed, with a $95 fine for the third.

City officials last year ended the Los Angeles Police Department's policy of automatically responding to alarms, and adopted a new policy to not send police to addresses that had two or more false alarms in the previous 12 months.

On Monday, the Public Safety Committee endorsed a plan to charge $115 for the first false alarm in a year, with the penalty escalating $50 for each additional false alarm.

Homeowners and businesses that have alarms but lack a city alarm permit would be assessed $100 for subsequent false alarms.

The new fees are subject to approval by the City Council and Mayor James Hahn. The council is expected to consider the ordinance within two weeks.

As part of the new alarm policy, names and addresses of 113,000 alarm-service customers were supplied to the city by the Greater Los Angeles Security Alarm Association. About 42,000 did not have city permits, officials said.

Scores of smaller alarm companies that do not belong to the association have not turned over customer lists, which the city needs to bill violators.

``We need to either get them to comply or play hardball,'' Councilman Dennis Zine said.

``We know (false alarms) are still a drain on police resources. We know false alarms are still coming in. I have a real problem with those 170 small companies that are not complying while everyone else does.''

LAPD officials say that since stopping automatic responses at the beginning of the year, the number of alarm calls has declined about 20 percent. But more than 95 percent of all alarm calls still are false alarms, officials said.

James Nash, [phone]

james.nash(at)dailynews.com