SAULT STE. MARIE -- The Sault Ste. Marie Fire Department is hoping to crack down on certain types of repeat calls.
The way officials hope to do so is by making people pay hefty fines.
The fines will be for repeat offenders whose calls could easily be prevented.
"Sometimes we have been to the property on more than one occasion. There's a malfunctioning problem and they are instructed to fix the problem, and they don't fix the problem that was a nuisance to alarms," said Chief Peter Johnson, Sault Ste. Marie Fire Services.
Another type of call the Chief would like to eliminate are false alarms.
He says that sometimes residents are "neglecting to notify us when they're testing it, and it generates an alarm, those are the repeated calls we are trying to eliminate."
Residents of the Sault say they agree with the decision to charge repeat offenders.
"I think as long as they give them some warning, I think that it's obviously draining on the firefighter to go back to the same house… maybe another house could need that emergency care, so I understand why they have to do it," said one resident.
"I agree with them charging because they're using the resources and their time to rush out there… it's taking them away from other possible calls," said another.
The fines will be $477 for a second offence and $954 for third-time offenders.
Johnson says this cost recovery system is "trying to keep our costs contained and actually lower the cost to the taxpayers... it mainly focuses on those people who don't follow the rules in place."
He adds that no one will be charged for the first time crews have to attend these nuisance calls. It's only for people who fail to fix problems pointed out to them by firegihters.
Officials say if this system was implemented for the last three years, $90,000 in fines would have been handed out to repeat offenders.
City Council is expected to be voting on the Chief's Cost Recovery Plan in the near future.
Link to original article on northernontario.ctvnews.ca: Fire officials to save taxpayers money with hefty fines