Quality of nightlife town hall puts St. Augustine's changing downtown landscape on display

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Dozens of people turned out for a town hall meeting at St. Augustine's City Hall Wednesday, where the topic was: nightlife.

Business owners and homeowners alike gathered in the Alcazar Room to voice their concerns over safety in downtown and how issues should be addressed.

The town hall showed the divide between homeowners who want to keep their way of life from changing and business owners who want to ensure their business continue to thrive.

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There's no doubt that St. Augustine is growing and downtown has increasingly become a place where locals and visitors want to be.

But homeowners say it's coming at a price by way of noise, trash and safety.

Karen Zander lives and works downtown. She wants to see a compromise.

"There may already be methods on the books to address the issues that we see happening," said Zander.

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Tom Dolan, owner of Meehan's Irish Pub, also attended the meeting.

"We have a business group downtown that's working with the city trying to establish communications and a way out of this where it's a win-win for both sides

The city has invested a lot of time into figuring out a solution, including trips to Orlando and West Palm Beach to see how those cities have handled similar problems.

One woman who attended the town hall suggested that city leaders visit other historical cities in the eastern seaboard such as Savannah and Charleston. City Manager John Regan agreed that was a good point.

Regan said some changes are already in motion including the hiring of two additional police officers and more cleaning crews.

The question of permits to remain open till 2 a.m. drew a lot of questions but exactly what that permit will cost or when it would be implemented is still up in the air.

"After this we will start sitting down as a staff and take all the input and start drafting a custom piece of legislation," said Regan.

Regan said there's no one-size-fits-all solution. He said we can start to see changes such as more lighting and more police officers by Nights of Lights.

Cox Media Group