Encinitas will be tripling many of its fees for responding to false fire alarm calls in an effort to reduce the “nuisance” incidents that the fire department responds to each year.
“It’s a behavior we want to curb,” Mayor Bruce Ehlers declared Wednesday as the City Council debated how high to set the fee for six-time offenders.
Ultimately, the council unanimously agreed to go with city staff’s new, higher fee recommendations for third-, fourth- and fifth-time offenders, but went with more than the recommendation for locations with six or more false alarm calls in a 12-month period.
Under the new fee structure, the fees will be:
$75 for the third time the fire department is called to a location unnecessarily in a year, up from the current $25 fee.
$150 for the fourth, up from the current $50 fee.
$250 for the fifth, up from the current $100 rate.
$500 for six or more calls, up from the current $150 rate.
Business or home alarm systems that accidentally make one or two calls for fire assistance in a year won’t be charged a fee, something that remains unchanged from the prior fee system.
In 2025, Encinitas Fire Department received nearly 500 false calls involving accidentally activated fire alarms. This is the first time the city has raised its false alarm fees since 1993, city employees said.
Elhers, a retired engineer who previously worked in the burglary and fire alarm industry, said he was particularly interested in having a high fee for the six-time offenders. A review of last year’s false alarm calls indicated that places with the highest number of false alarms weren’t homes or small businesses, but larger entities and “they’re just writing checks, rather than fixing their fundamental problem,” he said.
Four entities — Aviara Healthcare Center, San Dieguito High School Academy, Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, and Seacrest Village Retirement Communities — fell into the six or more false alarm calls category last year, City Manager Jennifer Campbell said.
Under the new fee system, Encinitas would have collected more than $12,000 in additional fee revenue in 2025, according to a city staff report.
“However, the importance of the fee is to provide an incentive to residents and businesses to make sure their alarm systems are properly functioning in order to avoid wasting (firefighters’) time responding to nuisance (false) fire alarms,” it continues, later adding that these false calls “waste valuable public safety resources, create safety hazards, and result in unnecessary operating costs.”
Carlsbad charges $108 for the second false alarm call, $215 for the third and $422 for four or more calls, while Vista charges $100 for the third call, $200 for the fourth, and $500 for five or more, the staff report states.