San Francisco business owners, who are facing repeated break-ins, say they are being made worse by “false alarm” fees the city charges when burglar alarms go off.
Kinani Ahmed reviewed pages and pages of invoices for thousands of dollars in false reporting fees issued by the San Francisco Treasurer and Tax Collector’s office.
He showed a nearby shopkeeper evidence of one of several attempted break-ins he had recently had to deal with.
“They picked the lock and went in. What are they after? There’s nothing there,” Ahmed said.
A decade ago, Ahmed founded Sextant Coffee Roasters in the SoMa and Mission districts. He invested in and installed better security glass to thwart burglaries.
Any time someone tries to break in, the alarm system calls the police, and the security cameras show the criminals in real time, forcing you to make the call.
“You say, ‘Send them in,’ but by the time the police arrive, these men are already gone,” Ahmed said.
The San Francisco Police Department’s emergency alert ordinance defines a false alarm as when responding officers find no evidence of criminal activity or attempted criminal activity.
But Ahmed said he was frustrated by the fines being levied against independent shops despite clear evidence of attempted break-ins.
“These fees, over $3,000, are expensive. For a small business, that’s a lot of money,” Ahmed said.
Most municipalities, including San Francisco, have gradual increases in fees for false alarms.
If an alarm is registered, there is no penalty for the first false alarm in a calendar year, a penalty of $100 for the second false alarm, $150 for the third, $200 for the fourth, and $250 for each false alarm beyond the fifth.
“Police need to be sent out when someone tries to break into a store, but they shouldn’t be penalized for it,” Ahmed said.
Other business owners have filed similar complaints and hope the city will make it easier for them to appeal what they believe to be legitimate responses to property crimes but turn out to be misreports.
“There’s only so much you can take as a business,” Ahmed said.
Fees and other taxes piling up over the years have him reconsidering whether to hang on or join a long list of retailers that have closed up shop and pulled out of San Francisco.
“I don’t want to stay here. I’d rather go somewhere else where I’ll be more appreciated and helped by the city,” Ahmed said.
As an immigrant from Ethiopia, he is grateful for the success he achieved with his once-thriving small coffee business.
“We can get back to the way things were before, we just need to work together and make sure the city listens to us and we feel supported,” Ahmed said.
Ahmed would like to hire more staff and expand his business, and although he still believes in the town’s future, he’s not sure if he’ll be able to keep his shop open.
Data requested from the San Francisco Treasurer and Tax Collector’s Office shows there were at least 8,200 misreported bills per year in 2021-22, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, but payments applied and fees collected dropped significantly in 2023-2024.
Data for 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 shows that more than $514,000 was collected in each fiscal year. However, in 2023-2024, the applicable payment amount dropped significantly to less than $260,000.
CBS News Bay Area is waiting for an explanation and response from the San Francisco Treasurer and Tax Collector’s office regarding the denial.
Kenny Choi
