COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- On a beautiful day in Colorado Springs downtown is filled with shoppers and panhandlers. Colorado Springs Police said they are seeing more aggressive panhandlers, and the city is now in talks about passing a no panhandling ordinance for the downtown area.

"One of the big issues in Colorado Springs is how do we draw more people to the downtown? And one of the criticisms of the downtown is that there is all of a sudden a sudden rush of aggressive panhandling," Tim Leigh, City Council Member, said.

The problem has gotten so bad that some people avoid the area all together.

"A good example is my wife. She won't go downtown anymore because every time she goes downtown she feels threatened," Leigh said.

Leigh said panhandling is covered by the constitution, so the city has to limit the ordinance to a certain area.

"When you create no speech or no panhandling or no activity zones you have to be very careful and limited to a very narrow geographic area within a community, and only if that narrowly-ranged geographic area has a specific relationship to the community in terms of revenue. So in other words if you want to have a tourist zone in a downtown that would be an area that you could limit no panhandling," Leigh said.

Officers said every fall they see an influx of homeless people traveling south for warmer weather, but this year the population is different.

"The weird part that we're seeing is that it's a younger crowd, so it's not that older typical crowd we see. It's between 20s and 30s age range, and they're more aggressive than what we're typically used to," Brett Iverson, CSPD officer and member of the Homeless Outreach Team, said. "They might repeatedly ask you, they might be a little more forceful, they might try to stop you and ask you."

Iverson said several of the new faces they have contacted said they were coming from the Denver area.

"We don't know if we associate that with their no camping ordinance or if that's just part of that movement from north to south," Iverson said.

He also said that some said they heard there were jobs in the area following the Waldo Canyon Fire.

Leigh said the city hopes that the no panhandling ordinance would help make downtown more attractive to businesses and tourists.

"The theory is that people who come to municipality for tourism and those kind of money-making events for the community would be more likely to come down if there were less intrusion by panhandlers," Leigh said.

Iverson said he thinks the ordinance would help.

"Any extra tool that we can get to use is always helpful especially when we see new people who are moving through town," Iverson said.

Both Iverson and Leigh agreed that despite the nuisance downtown is still safe.

"Downtown is still safe a place. I think a lot of people just don't want to see that type of population, which is unfortunate," Iverson said.

He added that CSPD has added more officers to help with enforcement, checking parks and downtown, and issuing citations when needed.

"We continue to work with them, but our problem is we continue to see new faces every day," Iverson said.

Officers said the worst thing a person can do is give money to a panhandler.

"There's ways to help, and there's ways not to help. The way not to help is give them money directly, that only perpetuates the problem. It continues to enable them to be where they are," Iverson said.

"The best thing you can do is make a donation to a social agency, the Salvation Army in particular, the Red Cross, you know some of those outreach organizations," Leigh said.

Leigh said the no panhandling ordinance is expected to pass and will likely be voted on before Thanksgiving.