A drafted bill in the state of New York has garnered much attention and zealous opinions from the alarm industry in the past few months. Article 6-E was developed by a committee of volunteers from the New York Burglar and Fire Alarm Association (NYBFAA) and would require all central stations to become licensed in the state in order to provide monitoring services. The licensing application would require fingerprinting of all operators and central station staff, a provision for potential State-required competency examinations and continued training among others.
Work on the current wording of 6-E began in 2009 and after posting the language on the NYBFAA website for public comment, the association voted to forge ahead with the draft in June 2010. Progress was halted when the bill’s sponsor, State Senator Brian Foley was not reelected. In November of 2010, the NYBFAA board of directors decided to pick up the issue once again and find a new sponsor. At that point, John Lombardi, president of CIA Security and a member of the drafting committee, related, “all of a sudden there was a really big reaction from the alarm industry. We decided to listen and entertain all public comments.” At the quarterly NYBFAA board of directors meeting held on Feb. 10, 2011, time was allotted to discuss Article 6-E.