1. The Police Department shall notify both the alarm subscriber and alarm business, or the proprietor alarm owner, by mail of the Police Department’s initial notice of assessment of false alarm service fees and of the amount of the assessed service fees. The alarm subscriber and alarm business, or the proprietor alarm owner may, within twenty days of the date of mailing of the notice, appeal to the Director of the Police Department by filing a petition with the Director of the Police Department or his designee. The petition shall contain specific defenses to the assessment. Affirmative defenses to a false alarm service fee assessment alarm may include evidence that a false alarm was caused by an Act of God, common cause, action of the telephone company, telephone line outage, power outage lasting longer than the life of a fully charged battery, and other extraordinary circumstances not reasonably subject to control by the alarm business, alarm subscriber or proprietary alarm owner.

2. Any petition submitted pursuant to paragraph 1 of this subsection shall be received by the Director of the Police Department or his designee within the time specified. If the petition is not timely submitted, any notified party shall be deemed to have waived his right to any further review or hearing as provided herein and the initial assessment shall be final.

3. If a petition is timely submitted pursuant to paragraph 1 of this subsection, the Director of the Police Department or his designee shall review the defenses, if any, set forth in the petition. If it is determined that a valid defense to the initial determination of false alarm assessment has been set forth, a notice will be sent to the alarm subscriber and alarm business, or proprietor alarm owner, that no assessment will be made for that particular alarm. The notice shall specifically set forth the findings and conclusions of the Director of the Police Department or his designee with respect to the review of the initial assessment.

4. If the Director of the Police Department or his designee determines that a defense to the initial notice of assessment has not been set forth, a notice of decision shall be sent by mail to both the alarm subscriber and alarm business, or the proprietor alarm owner, that they will be assessed pursuant to paragraph 5 of this subsection. The notice of decision shall contain the specific findings and conclusions of the Director of the Police Department with respect to the review of the initial assessment.

5. Service fees assessed pursuant to paragraphs 2 and 4 of this subsection shall be for fire alarm systems, upon the second and any subsequent false alarm, in an amount of one hundred five dollars, and for all other alarm systems, in an amount of ninety-six dollars per false alarm upon the second and any subsequent false alarm, to recover the cost of the response by the Police or Fire Department to the false alarm. The alarm subscriber and the alarm business shall, except as provided in Section 10-77(F), be jointly and severally responsible for the payment of the service fees imposed upon the alarm system. The owner of a proprietor alarm shall be solely responsible for the payment of the service fees imposed upon a proprietor alarm system. No service fee shall be imposed under this section for any false alarm for which a service fee has been imposed against the alarm subscriber, alarm business or proprietor alarm owner pursuant to Section 10-86.01(E). (Ord. No. G-1940, § 3; Ord. No. G-2476, § 4; Ord. No. G-3344, § 9; Ord. No. G-4003, § 10, 1997; Ord. No. G-4378, § 5, 2001; Ord. No. G-5393, § 1, 2009; Ord. No. G-5444, § 3, 2009; Ord. No. G-5495, § 14, 2010)