§ 9:413. Definitions.

(a)

Alarm answering service shall mean a telephone answering service providing among its services the receiving, through trained employees, of the emergency signals form alarm systems, and the relaying of the message by live voice to the communications center of the police department or sheriff's offices.

(b)

Alarm business shall not include a business which only manufactures alarm systems or only sells alarm systems to retail outlets, or one which manufactures or sells alarm systems to retail outlets, unless the firm, company, partnership or corporation also services, installs, sells at retail, and/or monitors alarm systems.

(c)

Alarm system shall mean an assembly of equipment or devices which is designed, arranged or used for the devices which is designed, arranged or sued for the detection of a hazardous condition or an unauthorized entry or attempted entry into a building, structure or facility, or for altering persons of a hazardous condition or the commission of an unlawful act within a building, structure or facility, and which emits a sound, or transmits a signal or message when activated, to which annunciation, a law enforcement agency or other service agency may be summoned to respond. For purposes of this chapter, an alarm system shall not include:

(1)

An alarm installed on a motor vehicle.

(2)

An alarm designed so that no notification is given to the police department or sheriff's office until after the occupants or an agent of the owner or lessee have checked the alarm site and determined that there is physical evidence at the site showing that the alarm was the result of criminal activity of the kind for which the alarm system was designed to give notice, if a person who is able to grant access to the alarm site remains at such site until law enforcement arrives, whenever the police are notified after an alarm has been activated and such person renders access and such other assistance as he is able to give and such as is needed by the law enforcement to properly investigate the situation.

(3)

An alarm installed upon premises occupied by the United States Government, by the state, by the city and parish or any subdivision thereof.

(4)

Any device or system designed solely to detect or give notice of fire or smoke.

(d)

Alarm user is any person, firm, company, partnership or corporation possessing a functional alarm system to which law enforcement may be required to be respond.

(e)

Automatic telephone dialing equipment shall mean an alarm system which automatically sends over regular telephone lines, by direct connection or otherwise, a prerecorded police message or docked signal to report a police emergency condition which the alarm system is designed to detect.

(f)

Board shall mean the false alarm regulatory board as established in section 9:427.

(g)

False alarm means the activation of an alarm system under circumstances where no police emergency exists at the alarm site and which activation results in a response by a law enforcement agency.

(h)

Holdup alarm shall mean any device activated by human action as a result of or in response to robbery or attempted robbery at the alarm site.

(i)

Interconnect shall mean to connect an alarm system to a voice grade telephone line, either directly or through a mechanical device that utilizes a standard telephone, for the purpose of using the telephone line to transmit an emergency message upon the activation of the alarm system.

(j)

Local alarm shall mean any alarm emitting audible and/or visual signals in, at or on the alarm site when activated, and which results in notification begin made directly or indirectly to the police department or sheriff's office.

(k)

Malicious false alarm shall mean the intentional false reporting to the police or sheriff's office of a police emergency condition, or the intentional setting off of an alarm system which will cause another to report the signal to law enforcement. However, this definition is not to include the testing of an alarm system by a licensed alarm business under guidelines to be established jointly by the police department and sheriff's office.

(l)

Monitoring station shall mean an office to which remote police alarm and supervisory signaling devices are connected, where trained personnel are on duty and in attendance at all times to supervise the circuits terminating therein, investigate signals, and retransmit alarm signals to appropriate agencies.

(m)

Permit shall mean a certificate of authorization issued by the chief of police for an alarm within the city limits of Baton Rouge and the Sheriff for an alarm outside of the city limits of Baton Rouge to the person in control of a specific property which authorizes the operation of an alarm system at that location.

(n)

Permit holder shall mean the individual, partnership or other legal entity to whom an alarm system permit is issued by the chief of police or sheriff.

(o)

Person shall mean any individual, partnership, corporation or other legal entity.

(p)

Police may be inclusive of any law enforcement agency having jurisdiction in the parish.

(q)

Primary trunk line shall mean an electronic signal alarm line leading directly into the communications center of the police department for use by banks, and other businesses upon appropriate licensing.

(r)

Proprietary system shall mean an alarm system emitting alarm or supervisory signals from within a control center located within a protected premises, the control center being under the supervision of the proprietor of the protected premises. If a proprietary system includes any signal, visible or audible, outside the protected premises, it thereby becomes a police emergency alarm system as defined above.

(s)

Response shall mean the arrival of a law enforcement officer or officers at the premises where an alarm system has been activated indicating a police emergency at those premises.

(t)

Special trunk line shall mean a telephone line leading into the communications center of the police department and having the primary purpose of handling emergency signals or messages originating either directly or through a central location from automatic dialing devices.

(u)

Transmitting device shall mean an instrument which sends a signal to a monitoring point indicating intrusion into a given protected area.

(Ord. No. 8206, § 1, 9-10-86; Ord. No. 8391, § 1, 4-22-87; Ord. No. 8880, § 1, 3-22-89; Ord. No. 9030, § 1, 12-13-89; Ord. No. 11072, § 1, 2-11-98; Ord. No. 15302, § 1, 4-25-12)