Orlando City Council and police discussed further options in transforming downtown Orlando’s image and reducing crime within the area. Although Mayor Buddy Dyer did not have a recommendation by the end of Monday’s workshop, commissioners argued a new strategy is needed for downtown police enforcement.
A string of violent incidents downtown, including a mass shooting on Halloween last year, prompted the city and law enforcement to bulk up security and safety measures in the downtown corridor.
It would cost $6 million annually if downtown police staffing were to continue as it does at the moment. A permit on certain businesses pays for about $1.6 million of the figure.
The number of police officers in downtown Orlando per night ranges from 81-131. The rest of the city sees 98 officers.
Commissioner Patty Sheehan said taxpayers throughout the rest of the city should not have to commit their money into the quantity of work that goes into downtown. “It’s just not sustainable.”
“I do not think it’s fair for the rest of the city to maintain – to subsidize – the bad business practices,” she said.
Last month, an officer shot and killed a man outside of Thrive Cocktail Lounge in downtown Orlando. Now, city officials are looking into more ways to transform downtown’s image into what Commissioner Jim Gray wants to be for “everyone.”
Gray and Sheehan pointed at the Mills 50 and Thornton Park districts as examples of what more they’d like to see out of downtown.
Other ideas floated in the workshop included increased surveillance and the potential ban of alcohol sales after midnight, which most commissioners said they were not in favor of. Officers have encountered 512 firearms downtown so far this year, with 177 of them being illegal.
Earlier this year, downtown Orlando reopened Orange Avenue to traffic on weekends at night to keep pedestrians off the streets and dissuade a “street party attitude.” No action was made at the workshop, but Dyer said the topic was something the city would work on “in the next month or two.”
He, too, called the money going into downtown “unsustainable.”
