TAMPA, Fla. — After months of meetings, the Tampa City Council announced that they are not quite ready to vote on the juvenile curfew ordinance.

Several residents turned out for the vote before the announcement was made that the vote would be pushed back. A new date for when that vote will occur has yet to be determined.

Tampa City Council member Luis Viera stressed the importance of 'getting it right' as the reason behind the council's decision to delay the vote.

“Tampeños of all backgrounds deal with violent crime. They want us to make sure we stand with victims of violent crime and that we are withstanding with solutions," he said.

If approved, the curfew would be in effect for youth under the age of 16, set at 11 p.m. on weeknights and midnight on weekends.

Opinions of a teen curfew have been torn since it was proposed last year, with some supporting it and others saying it will do little to reduce violence. The closer look at safety in Ybor City comes after a shooting that left 2 dead and 16 injured before Halloween.

Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw has not stated if he supports the curfew, but at a recent community forum talked about how studies show curfews encourage parents to know where their kids are so they can keep them out of trouble.

“Here in Florida, we found in Miami-Dade County, it served primarily as a deterrent effect,” Bercaw said. “One common denominator we found is, researches did find, this suggests that parents play a larger role in the enforcement of juvenile curfew laws than police.”

NAACP Hillsborough President Yvette Lewis says a curfew isn't the best solution.

“This curfew, 'Walking While Black,' has the potential of turning into something bad based on the past practices of the Tampa Police Department that targeted African Americans in the City of Tampa," she said. "The City of Tampa needs to be proactive instead of reactive.”

A proposal to increase funding for Tampa Parks Department’s “Stay and Play” program would help extend hours of operation.

The program currently hosts kids until 10 p.m. during school breaks for holidays and summer. The hours would be extended to midnight.

“Making sure youth have a place to go, that also has a big part of the conversation," Viera said.

Before the ordinance is brought up for a vote, Viera says he would like to see other factors contributing to violence addressed.

“There is also something called responsible gun ownership, and if you leave something out in a car, for example, and somebody gets it, there should be a consequence to that, to the extent that the City of Tampa can deal with that issue, I think that we should," he said.

Tampa City Council has supported the curfew in previous readings of the ordinance. In the latest reading, the council voted 5-2 in favor of the curfew.

Viera anticipates that the ordinance will be back on the agenda for March.