Kingsville council will be asked to approve a new bylaw on Monday night to deal with false security alarms that police say are wasting time and resources.
Provincial police say they're responding to too many false alarm calls in the town, and in one case, a single property had 35 false alarms in about a year.
According to the report, responding to false alarms costs the town about $52,000 a year.
Mayor Dennis Rogers said 40 per cent of the OPP contract is based on calls for service.
"You imagine $52,000 of taxpayer dollars that are being spent, that are responding to at-fault false alarms," he said.
"That's a significant amount of dollars, so anytime there's an issue like this we've got to put bylaws in place to ensure that we're taking care of our taxpayer."
The town is proposing a fee system:
Rogers said the goal is to encourage properties owners to maintain their systems properly so police aren’t tied up.
"The resources that we have, we want to make sure that they're allocated to where they need to be, right? And again if you have repeated false alarms, to me, we're not being efficient with the dollars that we're spending for our contract, and then obviously the officers aren't going to be in the spots where they're going to need to be for bigger issues," said Rogers.
He said he planned on raising the idea of involving the Kingsville BIA during Monday’s meeting about how to educate businesses.
"Just in terms of businesses knowing about the bylaw that had been passed and I think communication through the BIA is an important piece for them to share that information and help get the word out," he said.
"If you're a businesses that has an issue or repeated false alarms, we're hoping they'll take the steps to rectify it.
Lakeshore took similar steps in Dec. 2025, after OPP responded to 265 false alarms over nine months, and Lakeshore Fire handled 192 false alarms.
After voting to scrap its voluntary alarm registration program, the municipality moved forward allowing one free false alarm call before charging $400 for OPP responses and $570 for fire.