Aug. 3, 2026
Jonathan Rich
BrevardBeagle.com
Monday night Brevard City Council unanimously passed changes to its local ordinances regarding possession of alcoholic beverages, trespassing, mass loitering, and carrying concealed weapons on or near city property; and it did so with updated information involving violations and arrests for increased unlawful and unsafe behavior last month.
These violations were previously punishable with civil penalties which local law enforcement said were ineffective to curbing repeat occurrences, but new violations will be considered misdemeanors with fines up to $500.
The issue of unlawful and unsafe behavior on downtown Brevard’s sidewalks, public parks and public spaces is one that caught fire this summer as local law enforcement began receiving more calls for service related to these behaviors.
Some businesses and residents even asserted the repeat offenders were associated with the growing unhoused population that typically becomes more visible when warmer weather arrives.
Monday night Brevard Police Chief Christy Wentzell shared information from computer-aided dispatch records that confirmed her officers have recently responded to an increased number of requests for service related to unlawful behavior downtown, but she advised those incidents should not be associated with any single economic or social demographic.
According to the most recent local data available, in April 2026 Brevard Police responded to 125 general calls for service downtown. In May, that number was 188. In June, the total number of service calls dropped to 152, but in July there were 182 total requests for law enforcement presence in reference to illegal/unsafe public behavior on city-owned property.
Of those 182 requests for service, Wentzell said only 88 calls (48% of the total) involved someone who was unhoused/homeless and 91% of those situations were peacefully resolved with verbal warnings.
She then explained that this indicates only 9% of the interactions between someone without a permanent address committing unsafe or unlawful behavior in downtown Brevard resulted in an actual arrest last month.
She elaborated that these situations involved 15 people who were known to be unhoused/homeless, but added that all were treated with compassion under the City of Brevard’s previous policy for camping on public property, where someone deemed to be unhoused/homeless was offered public assistance or made aware of other resources such as The Bread of Life food bank and access to local overnight shelters.
“The officers made contact. They checked on them. Everything was okay, and they went back into service,” Chief Wentzell explained. “Only nine percent of those calls actually resulted in a member of the unhoused population being arrested or taken to jail. Those were typically for trespassing where they’d already previously received a trespass charge, a warning about being intoxicated, disruptive behavior or other violations. Other violations included instances such as drug possession or where we were able to attribute it to theft and fraud-type offenses.”
Wentzell suggested that any change in local ordinances being considered by City Council Monday night should not target any one social or economic demographic of visitors or violators, but instead should be contemplated for the greater safety of everyone in downtown Brevard.
“We’re not out here to do this to overly harass anyone or to lock folks up,” she said of the procedures her officers already followed in response to illegal behavior on city-owned property. “We try to refer people to services or to get them some help, but if you continue to violate and not abide by a lawful request, this will give (police) the opportunity to make an arrest, but to also make an arrest at the lowest level of charge that we can with that individual.”
Before the changes in the ordinance were put to a vote, several council members weighed in to make their perspectives clear in regards to what was and what was not being legislated locally Monday night.
“I don’t like framing this as a situation about the unhoused. This is a problem that’s happening with our entire community,” said Councilman Lauren Wise. “As a matter of fact, these numbers potentially show more housed people, I guess, are committing these crimes than unhoused. To me, this really is a way to help our law enforcement protect the community as a whole.”
Council member Patricia Holder seemed confused about how the downtown social district approved by Brevard City Council in August 2023 involving regulation of consuming alcohol downtown related to the proposed public behavior ordinance changes before all Council members present Monday night. She also asked City Attorney Mack McKeller for clarification about what it meant for someone carrying a concealed weapon.
“We at the church have a sign up that says no concealed weapons,” Holder asked. “So from a legal standpoint, can that be enforced?”
McKeller explained that the social district ordinance was focused on bars and restaurants serving alcoholic beverages in special designated containers downtown and that changes to the concealed weapons provision of that ordinance considered Monday applied to people on public property, such as in a park or city hall, and not on private property, such as in a business or church.
“The state law allows any private property owner or business owner to prohibit concealed weapons,” McKeller responded. “On any city property, it is prohibited to have a concealed weapon, just like any other private business or the church; anybody can’t have a concealed weapon on city property, even if you have a permit.”
Councilman Dean Lytle said he would like to see even more data about these types of violations moving forward so that officials can determine if changes such as making the public hours for city-owned property 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and issuing misdemeanor arrests and fines are effective deterrents.
Mayor Pro Tem Aaron Baker agreed with Lytle on the need for sharing more information about illegal/unsafe behavior in the future, but he also wanted to make sure the wording of the revised ordinance was clear in what it covered.
“I’m going to read something to you and you tell me what you think it means,” Baker began. “It shall be unlawful to loiter or congregate on the streets or sidewalks of the city in such a way that to obstruct or interfere with the free passage into or out of any private business or public property … would loiter be one person and congregate be multiple?”
Chief Wentzel dissected the semantics for members of the Council.
“If it’s one person and they are obstructing or preventing someone from being able to pass through, I would charge them with loitering,” she said. “If there’s more, that’s where in my professional opinion it becomes a congregation in preventing that flow of passage if it is for the purpose of obstructing.”
“If they’re lying on a bench, is that loitering?” Holder asked.
“If we get a call, we will usually come out and do a welfare check to make sure they are okay and provide them resources elsewhere,” Chief Wentzell responded. “We don’t address that as loitering unless they are sleeping on a city bench that we own and they have been criminally trespassed from any type of city property before. We enforce it that way, but usually it’s just to check on them, see if there is somewhere else they can possibly go to get help or to find a bed. That’s the route our officers will take.”
Right before the unanimous vote approved the changes to the ordinance, Mayor Pro Tem Baker offered some final words on what the revisions meant and why all members of the council had spent so much time on the subject.
“As other people have said, nobody should be targeted for arrest because they do not have a home,” Baker said. “Also, seeing an unhoused person and being uncomfortable does not mean you’re a witness to a crime. That background makes all of this incredibly difficult and it does mean that we weigh every word carefully.
“Because we’ve talked so much about the unhoused population, I just want to state that we have a health care crisis in this country, but an important corollary to that is that we have a behavioral and mental health crisis.
“We have been working with many of the non-profit partners in our community, but the state and federal government have to step up. Not just for health care, but specifically for mental health services, which are desperately needed, especially in rural places like Brevard. Safe housing for everybody has to be the goal for the city, and I think, for our entire country. “