Lawrence City Commissioner Lance Johnson on Wednesday told a crowd of nearly 40 merchants that he wanted the city to get serious about creating a new vision for downtown.

A host of downtown merchants responded by saying they already had one in mind: A vision that includes ridding downtown of “vagrants” and other panhandlers that merchants believe are hurting business.

“I fully endorse the idea of a grand vision for downtown,” said Dan Hughes, president of Downtown Lawrence Inc., which hosted the meeting. “But I also think there are a lot of fundamentals that need to be addressed now, and vagrancy is one of them. I would argue in the last year it has gotten worse, not better.”

City Hall leaders left the meeting saying they plan to do both. Johnson said he’ll ask the City Commission to create a new Downtown Task Force that will look at ways to make the downtown area more of a regional attraction. But Johnson said he didn’t want to wait on that group to address concerns over panhandling and vagrancy.

“I don’t want to see us get stuck on the vision and not fix the other things,” Johnson said. “I understand we can plan ourselves to death.”

City Commissioner Aron Cromwell, who also attended the Downtown Lawrence membership meeting, said he wants city staff to examine the feasibility of creating a panhandling free-zone between Sixth and 14th streets and New Hampshire and Vermont streets.

“I’m not talking about banning just aggressive panhandling,” Cromwell said. “I talking about none at all.”

Cromwell’s idea would prohibit people from sitting on sidewalks and benches with signs asking for money or with a hat on the ground to collect donations. He said he wants to figure out a way to allow legitimate street musicians and entertainers to remain. He said that may require the city creating a new low-cost licensing program for those performers.

He said he hopes city staff will be able to look at the idea over the next several weeks. Previously, attorneys for the city have expressed some concern that panhandling bans may run afoul of the First Amendment. The local chapter of the ACLU also has previously expressed similar concerns.

Hughes and other merchants asked the city look at simpler proposals too. The downtown group wants the city to start using plain-clothes police officers to patrol Massachusetts Street with a particular eye on panhandlers who are acting inappropriately. It already is against city law to “aggressively” panhandle in downtown, which includes repeatedly asking a person for money.

Johnson did not give a firm timeline for creating the new Downtown Task Force. Exactly what type of issues the group would address also wasn’t fully defined. But Johnson told the crowd that the task force would not be an effort to ramrod the idea of closing Massachusetts Street to create a pedestrian mall.

Johnson had publicly floated that idea in August, but he said he did so mainly to challenge the community to begin thinking about downtown.

“That was an idea, not the idea,” Johnson said. “I just don’t want us to lose sight of the fact that we can’t afford to rest on our laurels.”

Mayor Rob Chestnut, who also attended the meeting, said he was in favor of creating the task force.

“But it really needs to be about what we want to be five to 10 years from now,” Chestnut said. “Not about what we once had or what we don’t want.”

Some merchants, though, urged the city to think about ways to prevent new restaurants from coming to downtown over fears that they are crowding out more traditional retailers.

“We’re on the precipice of sliding into Aggieville,” said Peter Zacharias, an owner of Goldmakers jewelry, who was referring to Manhattan’s bar district.

Chestnut said he was opposed to taking any steps to prevent restaurants from opening downtown, but rather wanted to focus on ways to make the downtown more naturally attractive to retailers.

“If we start saying no without a concerted effort to bring in the type of businesses we want, I’m concerned we’ll have a 50 percent vacancy in 10 years,” Chestnut said. “And once we lose that energy, it’s done.”