Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser is calling the City Council "soft on crime" for delaying an extension of a youth curfew.

The Democrat mayor made the comment after the Democrat-majority council voted Wednesday to postpone until April 21 a vote to extend an existing curfew that will leave a six-day gap – April 15 to April 21 – during which no targeted curfew will be in effect, according to local radio station WTOP. 

D.C. public school students are on spring break that weekend. 

The office of D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said the lawmaker called Tuesday for the vote to be postponed until the council’s next legislative meeting to allow members to discuss their concerns about the legislation with Bowser and fellow Council member Brook Pinto, who is backing the measure.

"It seems like the council is listening to a very narrow interest group and is very influenced by the election calendar, and not by what we need. So the council will say they’ve driven crime down, so ‘let’s start going back to soft-on-crime policies,'" said Bowser, amid a very competitive race to replace the outgoing mayor in the November elections.

Bowser also said the council’s delay leaves her with limited options, but she said that she’s ready to take them, including declaring a public safety emergency, so a curfew could remain in effect during spring break.

The council, the mayor also said, has a pattern of being slow to recognize crime issues, eventually passing effective legislation that drives down crime numbers, then changing the laws back to what they were before the crime problem began.

The citywide curfew prevents residents younger than 18 from being out in public or at an establishment in D.C. from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., with some exceptions.

“It is unacceptable for our neighbors to face outbreaks of violence,” Pinto said. “It’s unacceptable to put our young people in harm’s way, and we’ve seen this in recent weeks."