City of St. Augustine to hold public workshop to discuss safety, cleaning changes

The City of St. Augustine is considering some big changes to make the historic downtown area safer late at night, and a little bit cleaner overall.

The proposal includes increasing the police presence, adding street-cleaning crews, updating the alcohol ordinance, improving the urban design and creating hubs for ride share drivers to drop off and pick up passengers.

This all comes after a spike in crime between 11:30 p.m. and 4 a.m.

According to the City of St. Augustine, there 107 calls for service during those hours from 2007 to 2010 and 137 calls for service from 2010 to 2013. Last year alone there were 233 calls for service.

The City says in 2010 the hour bars were forced to close changed to 2 a.m.

If you’d like to offer your opinions on the potential changes, there’s a public workshop to discuss the change Wednesday at City Hall from 2 to 5 p.m.