Comments on reflections December 16, 2025

KEN KIRSCHENBAUM, ESQ
ALARM - SECURITY INDUSTRY LEGAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER / THE ALARM EXCHANGE
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Comments on reflections
December 16, 2025

Comments on reflections from article on November 26, 2025

Ken:
   The November 26, 2025 on Thanksgivings Day, suggested that you reflect on your accomplishments, success and satisfaction level in the alarm industry. Joe has been in the alarm business a long time, longer than most, and seems like his is just getting started. He clearly loves what he does. Congratulations Joe and I hope you inspire many, especially the young ones, to focus on what is important in this industry.
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Ken
   I really do appreciate your blog this Thanksgiving morning!
Here are some of my MANY JoeStories I have ‘collected’ over the years:
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   I received a phone call from a Lawyer asking if I could assist in ANY WAY as her client was finally going to trial.
   The young man had been accused of rape and had been in ‘lock up’ for several months as he could not make bail or even get ‘bonded out’.
   His night time employment was a night stocker of a store we secured.
   Upon digging into the records, it appears the procedure of management was to let the young man in, bypass the interior motion sensors, set the system and lock the doors. When I brought my records to court and testified the alarm had NOT triggered that night, and NOT been disarmed until 05:30, the Jury brought back a NOT GUILTY verdict!
   The mother and girlfriend were hysterically crying in the hallway on my shoulders with thanks after the verdict was read by the foreman. They could not believe the alarm company with technology they knew nothing about (supervised opening/closing) had saved their loved one from going to prison. Supervised open/closing prevented an innocent from going to prison!
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Thanksgiving eve:
   As I had installed a Morse SPC-5011A transponder (there, I just dated myself) with it’s ‘polling’ capability, when the burglars cut the lines above the grocery store’s office, we got a ‘polling failure outage’ at the Central Station.
   (*this was before I had my radio network, circa 1981ish – the Morse U.L. certified polling computer allowed me to get my U.L. listing so the Fire Marshal would allow me to operate a Central Station, moving from my folks house to the facility we are now in).
   Upon arriving with my helper and discovering ALL cables had been cut, I sent him up into the huge attic space (you could walk upright in that hip roof area!). He spent over half an hour splicing and re-splicing the cables (color coding at 03:30 are kinda hard to see under a flashlight!). The police officer kept saying it was just ‘another false alarm’ while the both of us worked to get the Buy Rite Food Center’s system operational. I knew we HAD to get the system fully operational or they would need to have an armed guard to ensure the safe that was full of cash in anticipation of people bringing in their WIC checks was a very tempting target!
   The system was finally operational and the two very exhausted individuals set the system, got the proper closing, and began to head to our respective homes in anticipation of a warm bed and later, a wonderful Thanksgiving meal!
   We got no more than 3-4 blocks from the Buy Rite Grocery store when over the 2-way radio came the Central Station’s voice – WE JUST GOT ANOTHER OUTAGE!
   We headed back with the Police being notified! Upon re-opening of the grocery store, we discovered the cables had AGAIN been cut! This time, after re-splicing was completed, the ‘roof hatch’ contact zone indicated the opening was ajar – the burglars had fled – after obviously being detect and angrily again cutting the cables – being denied the long green cash still within the safe! Needless to say, the both of us were very tired ‘puppies’ when we arrived back to our respective homes (and later having to help with our wives who were asleep at the time in their beds).
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Thanksgiving day:
   I received a phone call from the Central Station Dispatcher indicating a ‘low air’ was being received from my largest customer – the world’s largest toy distributer – House of Lloyd’s!
   The Central Station could NOT get an RP (responsible party) to come away from their respective homes to respond. It was that time a HORRIBLE ice storm had passed through the area and roads were to say the least, pretty ‘iffy’. I contacted the maintenance man and informed him someone HAD to respond and if need be, I would respond with the keys I would retrieve from him at his residence! With keys in hand I attempted to ‘slide up’ the very slick, ice covered steps into the building.
   Upon entering I found the air pressure gauges indicating VERY LOW air levels and the dry sprinkler system was about to ‘dump’ and flood the building. The building was full of FIRE WORKS – House of Lloyd’s OTHER product. That product did not bode well being soaked in water!
Millions of dollars of inventory was at risk. The air compressor was doing it’s job properly with proper air pressure up to the 1st valve. Not being a sprinkler-fitter, I thought, on a ‘lark’ to tap with my wire cutters each of the valves. All of a sudden the hissing of air was heard after tapping one of the check-valves. That one valve apparently had ice within it, causing it to be ‘sealed’.
   *The heater in the valve house had failed and there was no low temperature sensor (an oversight that was to be corrected!!).
   The air pressure gauges began showing proper air pressure as the air compressor started to again run to fill that dry system’s pipes!
   Again, personalized service saved millions in product!

Thanksgiving day:
   The Central Station received a ‘supervisory’ signal from this area’s oxygen/acetylene production plant. Despite pleas from my dispatchers to get an RP to respond to check the boiler that kept the plant warm, nobody on the RP list would tear themselves away from the food or football game! The next day, upon opening, the boiler was found to be in fact to be ‘off’.
   All of the sprinkler pipes were busted. The production plant was shut down. Corporate came into town and terminated every one for not doing their job! I lost a valuable customer that day when WE did our job, but, the employees could not be ‘bothered’ to save THEIR job! AND, this area lost a business that helped to ensure heavy work of filling oxygen & acetylene tanks was being done!

Just some of the JoeStories I have this Thanksgiving Holiday!
Respectfully,
Joseph (Joe) Pfefer, President & Founder
Jade Alarm Co.
CELEBRATING 50+YEARS!
Since 1969
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Ken Kirschenbaum,Esq
Kirschenbaum & Kirschenbaum PC
Attorneys at Law
200 Garden City Plaza
Garden City, NY 11530
516 747 6700 x 301
ken@kirschenbaumesq.com
www.KirschenbaumEsq.com