“Alarm administrator” means a person or persons designated by the police department to administer, control and review false alarm reduction efforts and to administer the provisions of this chapter.

“Alarm appeals officer” means the person(s) designated by the city manager to hear and decide appeals related to service fees and registration suspensions.

“Alarm company” means a person subject to the licensing requirements, and/or a company engaged in selling, leasing, installing, servicing or monitoring alarm systems as defined by A.R.S. § 32-101.

“Alarm permit” means an annual permit issued by the city, allowing the operation of an alarm system within the city, whether the alarm is monitored or not.

“Alarm signal” means a detectable signal, audible or visual, generated by an alarm system, to which law enforcement is requested to respond.

“Alarm system” means any single device or assembly of equipment designed to signal the occurrence of an illegal or unauthorized entry or other illegal activity requiring immediate attention and to which law enforcement is requested to respond. “Alarm system” does not include motor vehicle or boat alarms, fire alarms, domestic violence alarms, or alarms designed to elicit a medical response.

“Alarm user” means any person, corporation, partnership, proprietorship, governmental or educational entity or any other entity owning, leasing or operating an alarm system, or on whose premises an alarm system is maintained for the protection of such premises.

“Cancellation” means the process where response is terminated when the alarm company notifies the department that there is not an existing situation at the alarm site requiring police response after an alarm dispatch request.

If cancellation occurs prior to police arriving at the scene, this will not be considered a false alarm for the purpose of civil/criminal penalty, and no penalty will be assessed.

“City” means the city of Maricopa or its agent.

“Dual-activation panic device” means a device installed by an alarm company for accounts requiring the function of a silent robbery/holdup alarm capability. The device should require that two buttons be depressed together, one button that is recessed and must be pushed and held, two bill traps wired in parallel or any device that requires two actions to be activated to activate a signal of a robbery or holdup in progress.

“Enhanced call verification” means an attempt to verify, by calling the alarm site and/or alarm user by telephone, to determine whether an alarm signal is valid before requesting police response from dispatch.

“False alarm” means the activation of an alarm system through mechanical or electronic failure, malfunction, improper installation, or the negligence of the alarm user, his/her employees or agents, and signals activated to summon law enforcement personnel unless law enforcement response was cancelled by the user's alarm company before law enforcement personnel arrive at the alarm location. An alarm is false within the meaning of this chapter when, upon inspection by the Maricopa police department, evidence indicates that no unauthorized entry, robbery, or other such crime was committed or attempted in or on the premises which would have activated a properly functioning alarm system. Notwithstanding the foregoing, a false alarm shall not include an alarm which can reasonably be determined to have been caused or activated by unusually violent conditions of nature nor does it include other extraordinary circumstances not reasonably subject to control by the alarm user.

“Local alarm” means an alarm system that emits a signal at an alarm site that is audible or visible from the exterior of a structure and is not monitored by a remote monitoring facility, whether installed by an alarm company or user.

“Panic alarm” means an audible alarm signal generated by the manual activation of a device intended to signal a life-threatening or emergency situation requiring law enforcement response.

“Permit year” means a 12-month period beginning on the day and month on which an alarm permit is issued.

“Responsible party” means a person capable of appearing at the alarm site upon request, who has access to the alarm site and the code to the alarm system.

“Robbery/holdup alarm” means a silent alarm signal generated by the manual activation of a device intended to signal a robbery in progress.

“Runaway alarm” means an alarm system that produces repeated alarm signals that do not appear to be caused by separate human action. The Maricopa police department may, in its sole and absolute discretion, discontinue police responses to alarm signals from what appears to be a runaway alarm.

“SIA control panel standard CP-01” means the American National Standard Institute approved Security Industry Association (SIA) CP-01 Control Panel Standard, as may be updated from time to time, that details recommended design features for security system control panels and their associated arming and disarming devices to reduce false alarms. Control panels built and tested to this standard by a nationally recognized testing organization, will be marked to state: “Design evaluated in accordance with SIA CP-01 Control Panel Standard Features for False Alarm Reduction.” [Ord. 10-03 § 1; Res. 10-13 § 1; Ord. 18-07 § 1; Res. 18-22; Code 2004 Art. 10-4(a).]