The Bloomberg Administration opposes draft legislation in the City Council that would restrict installation of car alarms.

At a Council hearing yesterday, representatives from the NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection and the NYPD provided lackluster testimony containing virtually no information. But they said their departments felt car alarms add a "layer of protection" against car theft, and thus do not support legislation to make installation or operation of the alarms illegal in New York City.

Neither agency spokesperson could provide any data whatsoever to suggest that car alarms help prevent car theft, and neither could state with any confidence or credibility that the alarms’ supposed value makes up for the horrible, ubiquitous source of noise pollution that they represent.

Council members attending the hearing of the Council’s Environmental Protection Committee were generally not buying the city’s line. Committee Chair James Gennaro cited Transportation Alternatives’ recent survey (www.transalt.org) that found that while 90% of respondents had been irritated or disrupted by the alarms, almost no one had responded to them to help prevent a car theft.

The hearing considered two separate bills aiming at curbing the alarms and their noise pollution. Intro 194, introduced by Council transportation chair John Liu, would make sale or installation of after-market car alarms illegal in New York City. Intro 448, authored by Council member Eva Moskowitz, would prohibit alarms’ operation altogether.

Liu said car alarms have "no measurable impact" in reducing auto theft and that they are largely ignored by the police. He said newer, noiseless anti-theft systems are far more effective. Moskowitz said noise complaints made up the biggest category of calls to the city’s new 311 quality of life complaint number. She pressed the police representative hard to offer any evidence at all that car alarms work, but could not elicit a substantial response. Gennaro said the citizens of New York were paying too high a price for very little protection against auto theft, and wanted some proof of the cops’ contention that audible alarms had value. Members said they received car alarm complaints on a constant basis, but had never heard any pro-alarm sentiment from constituents. Among Council members at the hearing, only Allan Jennings was hostile to alarm-ban legislation.

Citizens and advocates attending the hearing favored an alarm ban.

Many of the Council members said they were still waiting for the Mayor’s "Operation Silent Night" to have some impact on the communities they represent. The police department said, to laughter in the Council chamber, that it issued 196 summonses for car alarm noise pollution in all of 2002.

Council members told reporters they would work on combining the bills and would move ahead in spite of the administration’s stance. NY 1 reports that nearly half of the Council has endorsed at least one of the two bills.

Stopping car alarms is a populist issue waiting for a hero to take it up. Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioners Kelly and Ward clearly do not get it. It’s up to the City Council to pass a strong alarm-ban rather than let the problem sink into a morass of bureaucratic inaction at the NYPD and DEP. 

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