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Actually, not in Florida so Floridian FReepers, take heed of the following (emphasis added), it seems like you are SOL if the device goes off as you exit the store:

Florida Statutes 812.015 Retail and farm theft; transit fare evasion; mandatory fine; alternative punishment; detention and arrest; exemption from liability for false arrest; resisting arrest; penalties.--

(3)(a) A law enforcement officer, a merchant, a farmer, or a transit agency's employee or agent, who has probable cause [see (3)(b)] to believe that a retail theft, farm theft, a transit fare evasion, or trespass, or unlawful use or attempted use of any antishoplifting or inventory control device countermeasure, has been committed by a person and, in the case of retail or farm theft, that the property can be recovered by taking the offender into custody may, for the purpose of attempting to effect such recovery or for prosecution, take the offender into custody and detain the offender in a reasonable manner for a reasonable length of time. In the case of a farmer, taking into custody shall be effectuated only on property owned or leased by the farmer. In the event the merchant, merchant's employee, farmer, or a transit agency's employee or agent takes the person into custody, a law enforcement officer shall be called to the scene immediately after the person has been taken into custody.

(b) The activation of an antishoplifting or inventory control device as a result of a person exiting an establishment or a protected area within an establishment shall constitute reasonable cause for the detention of the person so exiting by the owner or operator of the establishment or by an agent or employee of the owner or operator, provided sufficient notice has been posted to advise the patrons that such a device is being utilized. Each such detention shall be made only in a reasonable manner and only for a reasonable period of time sufficient for any inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the activation of the device.

(c) The taking into custody and detention by a law enforcement officer, merchant, merchant's employee, farmer, or a transit agency's employee or agent, if done in compliance with all the requirements of this subsection, shall not render such law enforcement officer, merchant, merchant's employee, farmer, or a transit agency's employee or agent, criminally or civilly liable for false arrest, false imprisonment, or unlawful detention.

(4) Any law enforcement officer may arrest, either on or off the premises and without warrant, any person the officer has probable cause to believe unlawfully possesses, or is unlawfully using or attempting to use or has used or attempted to use, any antishoplifting or inventory control device countermeasure or has committed theft in a retail or wholesale establishment or on commercial or private farm lands of a farmer or transit fare evasion or trespass.

(5)(a) A merchant, merchant's employee, farmer, or a transit agency's employee or agent who takes a person into custody, as provided in subsection (3), or who causes an arrest, as provided in subsection (4), of a person for retail theft, farm theft, transit fare evasion, or trespass shall not be criminally or civilly liable for false arrest or false imprisonment when the merchant, merchant's employee, farmer, or a transit agency's employee or agent has probable cause to believe that the person committed retail theft, farm theft, transit fare evasion, or trespass.

And I should have double-highlighted (3)(c) because that is where most of your recourse goes bye-bye. Only if you can PROVE unreasonableness or lengthy delays might you have a case.

That's true in most states, IF the alarm goes off when you try to exit. Of course, if the alarm goes off, they suddenly have a pretty solid basis for thinking that you might be stealing something, and consequently that belief becomes a lot more reasonable on their part. In that case, they gotcha, so you're better off playing along if you really didn't do anything wrong.

But in this case, I think the original posted was concerned about the reasonableness of demands to search and possibly hold someone even when the alarms don't go off - i.e., when they don't have any particular reason to suspect that you've actually stolen something.