Skateboarders Rail at Ostracism but Face Rocky Rolling

We have met the enemy, and he’s a gnarly dude.

These are troubled times for the skateboard crowd, who must know that The Man is watching their every move.

Suddenly in Huntington Beach, skateboarders are Public Enemy No. 1.

Hell on wheels.

This isn’t the first time that skateboarders have gotten the unwelcome sign, but this time the crowd senses that it’s for real. The City Council has passed a tougher ordinance barring skateboarding in commercial areas, designed to keep the dudes with the ‘tudes from rampaging through its developing merchant district.

Or, as one merchant put it: “You walk out the door of here, and someone zooms by, and you’re flattened.”

Whether that has ever happened is not the point; it’s the thought of a flashing skateboarder whizzing by and knocking a baby out of a stroller that sells newspapers.

Some of the skateboarders talked tough at the City Council meeting the other night, but I found a much more mellow reaction Thursday, on the sidewalk surfer turf in Huntington Beach otherwise known as Main Street. Four high-schoolers even spent a few minutes rapping with a cop on foot patrol and proclaimed him to be a pretty cool guy, especially the part about the city possibly building a skateboard “park” for them.

And while arguing that the new ordinance “sucks,” the teens said there’s not much sense in trying to fight City Hall. “They want to get rid of us because they want the area to be nice,” said Matt, 16. He also objects to being considered a “nuisance.”

“That’s the label word-- nuisance ,” he said. “Cars make more noise than skateboards.”

There does seem to be a bit of a generation gap here. I approached Chu Pak, a middle-age store owner on Main Street, and asked him what he thought of the new ordinance.

He immediately walked from behind the counter and out onto the sidewalk to show me where the skateboarders do their tricks. To illustrate the story, he started bending and bobbing and snaking his hands through the air, as if he were skateboarding.

“They need to play somewhere, but not in a business area,” Pak said.

He showed me where the concrete on some steps had been chipped away by repeated attempts by skateboarders to hop the stairs.

The presence of small groups of skateboarders sometimes scares his customers, Pak added.

I asked if they ever caused any real trouble.

“Not really,” Pak said. “But they make a lot of noise.”

I talked to a couple of cool skateboarders across Coast Highway, practicing maneuvers in a parking lot.

“They’re rebuilding downtown, and they want to weed out the undesirables,” said Jeff, 22. He acknowledged that, under the city’s definition, he is an undesirable.

“I can see their point on damage,” he said. “The only thing I don’t like is, I don’t mind banning them on Main Street, but they’re banning them on 5th Street too. I don’t mind Main Street because there’s too many people there, anyway.”

But skateboarders working on their craft need the concrete formations provided by curbs and other structures that are found in commercial areas, he said.

“I don’t see why we’re considered undesirable,” said his buddy, Eric, 20. “I’m just a normal guy who enjoys skateboarding.”

I’m afraid it’s twilight time, fellas. Besides, Huntington Beach, Dana Point and Laguna Niguel also have the wheels in motion to restrict skateboarding. Santa Ana has had a skateboarding ordinance for years.

I tend to stay out of arguments such as these. I have enough midlife crises without trying to decide whether I want to side with the Establishment against a bunch of kids on skateboards. What they do seems harmless enough to me, although I admit to not understanding the fascination with hopping a curb on a skateboard.

But if there’s one truism about skateboarders, it’s that they all grow out of it.

John Parmenter, now the ripe old age of 28, was standing on Main Street and reminiscing about his skateboarding days of a dozen years ago but coming very close to saying that he favors the new ordinance.

He fears that some skateboarders are dabbling in “street trips” or “gangster trips” and might need to be curtailed in the business district by police. The ordinance would be a good way to control that problem, he said.

“There’s no reason to skateboard on this street, anyway,” he said.

You’re getting old, I told him.

“Yeah,” he said. “The kids under 25 won’t be able to understand it.”