PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia City Council will consider a ban on trigger mechanisms known as bump stocks that increase how many bullets a gun can fire. And three Council members are seeking business curfews in parts of their districts.
Councilmember Curtis Jones introduced the bump stock ban on behalf of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration, saying he hoped it would improve safety for members of the public and for police.
“It’s not uncommon for us to see 100 spent shells at a crime scene because of these trigger mechanisms. Imagine this, as fast as you can pull your trigger, it fires twice as fast.”
Philadelphia has been largely unsuccessful in regulating weapons within the city, but Jones says it’s worth trying.
An 11 p.m. curfew on certain types of businesses in potentially troublesome commercial corridors, modeled on Councilmember Quetcy Lozada’s bill that took effect in Kensington two months ago, may be spreading to other parts of the city. Three council members introduced curfew legislation at Thursday’s session.
Lozada supports the move. She proposed curfews on smoke shops, corner stores and take-out shops in parts of Kensington where all-night amenities drew disruptive crowds.
“I think that this will benefit all of our commercial corridors and will keep quality of life intact or improve it in places where it is necessary,” she said.
Councilmembers Anthony Philips, Mike Driscoll and Cindy Bass have followed suit — though Philips says his bill, which calls for a midnight curfew on certain streets in his Northwest district, is meant to be preventive.
“We’re trying to prevent what happened in Kensington from happening up our way,” Phillips said. “A lot of neighbors in the 9th District have been complaining about stores that cause loitering, and we don’t want that in our neighborhood.”
Council also unanimously passed a bill requiring tax preparers to disclose fees up front.
The session also included a lot of citizen activism. One group, singing, demanded a “people’s budget” that would include large increases for Parks and Recreation, mobile crisis units, worker protections and community college.
There was also a large contingent of Penn employees demanding that the university negotiate more seriously with its unions, as well as tenants from the Brith Sholom House retirement community, seeking help from the city to improve conditions in their building.