Law for blaring car alarms on table Portland eyes fines for security systems set off for more than 10 minutes

PORTLAND – The City Council is considering an ordinance that would give police authority to ticket or tow vehicles whose alarms won’t turn off.

The proposal before the council’s public safety committee is to ticket cars when an alarm sounds for more than 10 minutes in an hour. The first offense would cost $50, escalating to a fourth offense fine of $300. The fines would be in addition to towing fees if the alarm fails to shut off.

“These things left unattended can just blare out into the night,” said Councilor Peter O’Donnell. “I’m not in search of laws, but if there’s something that should be regulated in terms of the nuisance they can cause other people, that’s something we should work on.”

Car alarms have their supporters and detractors.

Dan Kolbert, who lives in the West End, likes the idea of giving police authority to fight back when car alarms go off for no reason when there’s nobody around to disable them.

Two nights in a row, the peace in his neighborhood was shattered by the blaring repetition of a car alarm from 9 p.m. until about 1 a.m., he said.

“I called the police and they said there was nothing they can do,” Kolbert said. “They have authority to break up parties and tell people to turn music down. It seemed absurd they couldn’t do anything about a car that was making an incredible racket.”

But others say most alarms are set to shut off in a minute or two, and that they can be effective in scaring away burglars.

Peter Hall, who moved to the city’s West End from San Francisco, said car alarms are heard much more often in major cities. In San Francisco, some alarms would go off every time a diesel bus went by, and the buses operated 24 hours a day, he said.

“Sometimes you want to shoot the car,” he said.

Portland police said there were 530 car burglaries in the city through September, down slightly from 555 in the same period last year. Police investigated 121 car thefts through September, down from 177 in the same period last year.

Les Blomberg, executive director of Noise Pollution Clearinghouse, a group based in Montpelier, Vt., said there is some doubt about the alarms’ effectiveness – but no doubt they are noisy.

“Nobody ever calls the cops because someone is stealing, they call the cops because the car alarm is going off for so long and it’s not turning off,” he said. “There’s the social cost. It wakes people up in the middle of the night.”

Enforcing a 10-minute rule will be a challenge, Blomberg said. “Do the police have to hear it for 10 minutes? What cop wants to sit around for 10 minutes listening to a car alarm?”