Illinois weighing a ban on sale of some smoke detectors over safety concerns

By Sean Reed | The Center Square
The Center Square

(The Center Square) – With long-living smoke detectors on the market and required to be installed in Illinois, public safety officials want cheap, less reliable devices off retailer shelves.

Legislators and Public Safety Officials called Thursday for the state Senate to make progress on House Bill 4328, which would ban the sale of some smoke detectors in Illinois.

A previous law, passed in 2017, changed the requirements for what smoke detectors could be installed in homes and buildings. A smoke detector must be hard-wired to a home and have a tamper-proof battery with a 10-year lifespan.

The bill has been put forward once before, but was left to sit in the Senate after passing the House, according to Margaret Vaughn, government affairs coordinator for the Illinois Firefighters Association.

Advocates said the delay in passing the bill has already cost lives.

“There’s been 288 residential fire deaths in Illinois since 2023, since they should have stopped the sale,” Vaughn said. “If those people had a fire inspection done, they wouldn’t be a violation of state law.”

Fire Marshal of the City of Champaign, Jeremy Mitchell, said the having effective smoke detectors is a major concern, especially in rural areas with fire departments that have longer response times.

“Something that we want people to understand is that people tend not to die by being burned in fires. People die by asphyxiation because all of our modern furnishings made out of synthetic materials have tremendously toxic smoke,” Mitchell said.

House sponsor of the bill Rep. Joyce Mason, D-Grayslake, said she has worked to loop retailers in on the bill.

“I have had discussions with the Retail Merchants Association. They are not opposed to this bill. They are neutral on the bill and they understand the reason why we’re doing it,” Mason said.

Asked about potential use cases outside for the targeted devices – such as barns, sheds or campers – Vaughn said the ban would benefit non-mandated uses as well.

“Even if you bought them for a shed or a doghouse – to keep them updated you would have to change the battery every six months. So you’re actually spending more money in the long run to keep the thing working,” Vaughn said.

The bill has been taken up by Sen. Chris Belt, D-East St. Louis, who was unable to join other advocates for their remarks Thursday.