Council Provides Final Approval to Modified Curfew, Including Permanent Option of Temporary Expanded Curfew Zones

At its most recent Legislative Meeting, the Council passed, in the second of two necessary votes, modifications to the District's longstanding curfew law, including the permanent establishment of temporary, geographically narrow earlier curfew zones impacting groups of youth.

DC Curfew Background

The District has had its modern youth curfew since 1995. That legislation imposed a curfew on youth under the age of 17, in the months of September to June, from 11PM to 6AM on weekdays and midnight to 6AM on weekends, and from midnight to 6AM daily in July and August. Recent emergency and temporary legislation expanded the curfew to apply to those aged 18 and under, and dictated an 11PM start time for the curfew year-round.

In 2025, emergency and temporary Council legislation created a new variety of youth curfew, meant to counteract social media inspired "teen takeovers," the recent trend of flash mob-like youth gatherings advertised online and via paper flyers. Under this new class of temporary curfew, police or the mayor could designate specific, defined geographic zones for extended, temporary curfew applicability. In these zones, the expanded curfew remains in place for up to four days, would go into effect at 8PM, and would designate that only gatherings of more than eight youth would constitute a curfew violation. Zones could only be put into place for cause-either crime occurring in the zone in the prior thirty days, or that an anticipated gathering of a large group of youth (such as a teen takeover) is likely to result in public safety problems, with a cumulative 30-day limit on such curfews.

Final Changes to Permanent Curfew Legislation

As approved in votes at the two most recent Legislative Meetings, the permanent curfew legislation is an attempt to maximize the positives of the emergency and temporary legislation that created the new class of curfew, while responding to criticisms of both these new curfews and curfews in general.

In addition to all the changes approved two Legislative Meetings ago (detailed below), at the most recent meeting, two additional amendments to the new curfew bill were approved. The first amendment to the bill dictates that the entirety of the new bill will sunset on December 31, 2028. If no intervening Council action is taken prior to that date, the District's curfew law will revert to the content of the 1995 bill on the matter.

The second amendment to the bill formally forbids police from taking youth to any police station or detention center if the sole basis for the action is a curfew violation. Given that a curfew violation is not in itself a criminal offense, transportation to a detention facility would be a disproportionate response by law enforcement. Detention of youth has been shown to have a criminogenic impact, meaning that it promotes further criminal behavior.

The amendment to the bill provides for a list of alternate locations where police can drop off youth curfew violators, if the police are unable to be place detained youth directly into a parent's custody. The list of potential eligible dropoff venues includes the youth's home, any organized youth programming event, 24-hour youth drop-in centers, or, as a last resort, in the custody of an approved employee of the Child and Family Services Administration.

Prior Changes to Permanent Curfew Legislation

As the permanent bill emerged from its first passage two Legislative Meetings ago, it requires that the announcement of all future extended youth curfew zones during the months of June, July, and August be mandatorily paired with announcements by the Department of Parks and Recreation (or a partner community group) of substantial, structured, and supervised youth programming in the same geographic area as the curfew zone. Youth traveling to or from this paired youth programming would not be in violation of the curfew itself.

Additionally, the new bill includes a change in terminology, swapping out all references throughout the entire curfew legislation-both the original 1995 law and the recent additions-replacing the word "juvenile" (most often associated with the term "juvenile justice," with a law enforcement context baked into the term itself) with the more judgment-free word "youth."

The bill also reverts the permanent citywide curfew hours back to the original 1995 standard: in the months of September to June, from 11PM to 6AM on weekdays and midnight to 6AM on weekends, and from midnight to 6AM daily in July and August.

Additional changes included in the compromise bill include:

• elimination of the ability of Business Improvement Districts and Main Street organizations to petition for the creation of a temporary extended curfew (while maintaining Advisory Neighborhood Commissions' ability to petition)
• elimination of the mayor's ability to temporarily extend the 1995-era youth curfew citywide as early as 8PM, with the presumption that any circumstances meriting such a geographically broad curfew expansion would merit standalone emergency legislation
• strengthening the digital notice provision regarding temporary youth curfews
• limiting law enforcement interaction with youth regarding curfew rules outside of actual curfew violations, and allowing law enforcement to issue verbal warnings about the impending onset of an extended curfew only in the half-hour preceding its start time

Other Action

In other action at the most recent Legislative Meeting, the Council approved bills that would:

• update and modernize the District's motor vehicle insurance laws, especially mandatory minimum insurance amounts, which have not seen major reform since 1986 (first of two needed votes)
• provide financial relief to residents of the failed River East at Grandview Condominium project including via eligibility for Home Purchase Assistance Program (HPAP) grants and conversion of past HPAP loans to grants (first of two needed votes)
• expand the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection's enforcement authority and ability to target unfair and deceptive trade practices (first of two needed votes)
• require the District government to cover indirect (minimum fifteen percent supplement) in addition to direct program costs when awarding grants or contracts to nonprofit organizations (first of two needed votes)
• require changes in DC's building code to allow for new residential buildings of six or fewer stories, with four or fewer units per floor, to have a single entry/exit stairwell, in an effort to maximize residential square footage and ultimately drive down housing costs (second of two needed votes)
• extend recent revisions to the District's Open Meetings law to allow specific exceptions when a majority of Councilmembers are allowed to legally gather, as long as no votes or action are taken (second of two needed votes on a temporary measure)

The Council's next Legislative Meeting is scheduled for June 2.