Pittsburgh's youth curfew has been a paper tiger for five years, but it could have teeth again as early as next month following a City Council vote to spend $500,000 to open a new center.

If council's tentative vote yesterday is repeated on final consideration next week, nonprofit contractor Three Rivers Youth aims to use a building at 200 N. Dithridge St. in Oakland to house anyone under 17 picked up by police for staying out too late.

Police haven't had any place to take curfew violators since 2004, when an underutilized center was closed in a rash of budget cuts.

Residents are tired of hearing that there's nothing the city can do about teens who make noise and cause trouble at night, council members said, before voting 8-1 to fund the center. Three Rivers Youth will connect the kids and their families with social services.

"This is an alternative to sending them to Shuman Center, where they will be locked up," Councilwoman Tonya Payne said. "What a lot of these kids need is some intervention from some adult to show them that someone cares."

Council President Doug Shields argued that the money would be better spent on programs for youth, reading a letter from two University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work professors calling curfew spending "questionable." He could not persuade any other members to vote no.

The city's five-year recovery plan, approved by council Tuesday, appears to allow for just one year of curfew center funding.

"Nothing in our business is a guarantee beyond one year," said Peggy Harris, president and CEO of Three Rivers Youth. "At the end of the day, the numbers and the experience will speak for themselves," she predicted.

The curfew ordinance requires youths younger than 17 to be indoors from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. on summer weeknights, and starting at 10 p.m. on school-year weeknights. Friday and Saturday nights year-round, they must be in by midnight. There are some exceptions, like returning home or going to or from a job.