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Hagerstown police present revised ordinance to prohibit lodging outdoors; chief stresses voluntary compliance and limits
Summary
The city's police chief presented a revised ordinance to prohibit lodging outdoors at the June 3 work session, saying enforcement language was narrowed to law enforcement only and emphasizing the measure is intended to secure voluntary compliance and be used rarely.
HAGERSTOWN, Md. — The mayor and city council heard a presentation June 3 from Police Chief Pfeiffer on a revised ordinance to prohibit lodging outdoors that narrows enforcement authority to law enforcement and seeks voluntary compliance in rare cases.
The ordinance presentation matters because city staff said an enforcement gap currently exists for certain public spaces, such as sidewalks and some park hours, where existing laws and constitutional protections can limit removal of individuals. Chief Pfeiffer said the revision removes a provision that had allowed "law enforcement and other city employees" to enforce the rule; enforcement will be limited to law enforcement under the revised language.
"We did make a minor change to the ordinance. There was a section in the ordinance on the enforcement side that had a section said law enforcement and other city employees. Really no other city employees could enforce us. So we took that section, that part out. So it's just law enforcement, the enforcement side," Chief Pfeiffer told the council.
Pfeiffer repeatedly said the ordinance is not aimed at homeless people but at filling a legal gap and encouraging voluntary compliance. "I just wanna reiterate that that this isn't an ordinance against homeless people," he said. He described common situations where police currently lack authority to compel someone to leave public sidewalks if the person is not committing another crime, and he said city staff expect to use the ordinance infrequently. When asked how often the tool might be needed, Pfeiffer said he and lieutenants estimated "probably less than 10 times" per year for public-space incidents.
Chief Pfeiffer said the measure would give officers leverage to engage people and connect them with services rather than simply displacing them. He described ongoing efforts to coordinate a specialty court with the district court judge to provide post-arrest alternatives and treatment pathways and said criminalizing behavior is considered a last resort.
Council members asked questions about where the ordinance applies and how it interacts with existing park rules and trespass law on private property. Pfeiffer said parks are governed by a separate ordinance during certain hours and that private property trespass remains a distinct mechanism for removal on nonpublic land.
No formal vote on the ordinance was recorded at the work session. The chief urged the council to view the change as a narrowly tailored enforcement tool to address limited public-safety and public-rights-of-way concerns, coupled with outreach to social-service partners.
