false fire alarms...all students in dorms where it occurs will have to pay a $25 fine:

Quote :

"St. Augustine's Students Fined for False Fire Alarms Posted: 4 minutes ago Raleigh — St. Augustine's College is fining every student in dorms where false fire alarms occur in an effort to cut out the act, which fire officials say can have deadly consequences. Since Jan. 1, the Raleigh Fire Department has responded to 27 false alarms on campus. Two dozen occurred at one dorm, Weston Hall, at all hours of the day with the most recent being Tuesday. "We want to hit students where they hurt," said Cynthia Beamon, vice president of student affairs at St. Augustine's. She said all students in the affected dorm must pay $25 each time an alarm is pulled and there is not a fire. She could not say, however, how long the penalty has been in place and whether school officials think it is effective. "We are getting their attention; we want to get their attention," Beamon said. "We want them to know how important it is that they participate in assisting us in solving this problem." The school is also looking at other options such as increasing security and possibly adding surveillance cameras. Also at issue is the city's involvement and the impact the false alarms is having on the city and its fire resources. Raleigh Assistant Fire Chief Larry Stanford said it is typical for three fire engines, a truck company and a battalion chief to respond to each alarm. The false calls, he said, take away valuable resources. "It seems like a harmless prank," Stanford said. "But it's not. People will get complacent when they have so many." The fire department has held fire-safety forums for students, warned them that pulling fire alarms is a crime and is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the person or people responsible for pulling the alarms. And although the city can fine the school up to $500 per false alarm under a 2004 ordinance, Stanford said they are not doing this, right now, because the department is trying to work with the college to solve the problem. But in reports, as late as last month, fire captains told security officers at the scene that the false alarms were becoming a serious problem at the school and that "there needed to be more effort on their part to thwart the problem." "I think that more aggressive action by the school and Raleigh Fire Department Fire Prevention is needed," a fire official stated in another report. Officials in city government could not say exactly how the many false alarms at St. Augustine's have an impact on the city, because they did not know about them until they were asked by WRAL. "

http://wral.com/news/local/story/1401299/

5/9/2007 8:56:30 PM

thats not gonna go over so well I bet

5/9/2007 9:09:32 PM

my guess is people will start to keep a lighter and some kindling next to their beds. hear a fire alarm in the middle of the night and go start one outside the front door

5/9/2007 9:12:30 PM

they just need to put cameras near the alarms or have that liquid that shoots all over you when you pull it.

5/9/2007 9:13:32 PM

Id like to go ahead and see them try to charge me for something I did not do and had no control over happening, they would have to take my ass to court to see that money

5/9/2007 9:19:24 PM

^ I agree, but what they will likely do is add it to your school bill and then when you don't pay it in full with the extra 25 they will drop your schedule and all that bullshit. So in actuality it will probably be the student having to take the school to court.

5/9/2007 9:30:04 PM

I don't see how this could be legal. The people doing it probably don't even live at that dorm.
I say it's the school's fault for not having enough security.

We had the same problem in North Hall until they put cameras in.

5/9/2007 10:10:55 PM

with enough fines...they can afford the security to avoid the fines

5/9/2007 10:14:09 PM

haha Cynthia Beamon reads like an SS Officer

5/9/2007 10:14:45 PM

Lawsuit.

5/9/2007 10:56:29 PM

Mommy and daddy will pay these, no worries.

5/10/2007 12:24:40 AM

give me 20 dollars or im pulling it

5/10/2007 12:47:30 AM

this makes about as much sense as fire drills.

5/10/2007 1:00:25 AM

they tried to do something similar when I was a freshman ages ago. They tried to tell us that if the bathroom was trashed (some one shit all over everything) in the hall again that we wouldn't get housekeeping services and each person on the entire floor of the dorm would have to do community service hours on campus and shit.

5/10/2007 1:12:14 AM

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this will not turn out well. People will continue to pull the fire alarm, but others will set fires just to avoid geting charged.

I mean, that's what I would do, anyway.

5/10/2007 8:51:21 AM

^ LOL.

5/10/2007 8:59:50 AM

1. [OLD] I read about this in the N/O months ago.
2. 24 false alarms at Weston since January 1? That's, like, $600 each student has paid.

I dunno. 24 false alarms is the most obnoxious thing I've heard about lately, but $600?

5/10/2007 9:33:53 AM

Quote :

"I don't see how this could be legal"

why....there is nothing illegal about it

5/10/2007 10:04:24 AM

^^I don't think they've been charged for every single one that's happened since Jan. I thought the charging was just starting now.

5/10/2007 10:08:15 AM

$50 SOUNDS BETTER THAN $25

5/10/2007 10:16:58 AM

^^Well, they were bitching about paying these fines a long time ago. I read this months before this thread was made.

5/13/2007 2:24:12 AM

i know who's to blame....


ME!!!

[Edited on May 14, 2007 at 10:08 AM. Reason : oic]

5/13/2007 4:30:24 AM

^ha, i knew this thread went on for too long without that

5/14/2007 8:53:54 AM

Quote :

""We want to hit students where they hurt," said Cynthia Beamon, vice president of student affairs at St. Augustine's. "

5/14/2007 9:15:47 AM

way to be that guy, RhoIsWar1096

5/14/2007 10:06:47 AM

St. Augustine's College....'nuff said.

5/14/2007 12:07:28 PM

st. aug, north hall

hmmm...i wonder what is the same about those two places

that would probably be the answer to the problem

i just dont know

someone should get on that

5/14/2007 12:17:43 PM

i know in lee we had malfunctioning alarms for a while. administration was aware of it, but they couldn't turn them off because of fire codes and whatnot. it'd be funny if these were just malfunctioning alarms.

5/14/2007 12:22:50 PM

i would not pay it

5/14/2007 12:23:46 PM

Avent Ferry's fire alarms would go bezerk everytime it rained when i was there...

5/14/2007 12:24:42 PM