NEWPORT BEACH : Residents Seek Ban on Skateboards

Jean VanOrnum and her husband, Walter, watched a neighbor’s 2-foot planter along 15th Street being “systematically” destroyed with an unusual tool--a skateboard.

“We watched the (skateboarders) bang against it,” Jean VanOrnum said. “They did a good job.”

That’s one reason the couple went to the city last month with a petition signed by 18 residents asking for a skateboarding ban along 15th Street and in the public restroom area on the beachfront.

Residents say noise and pedestrian traffic hazards created by skateboards in the area have always been problems. But the city’s recently imposed ban on skateboarding near the Newport Pier has driven even more skaters into their neighborhood, they say.

During the day, the skateboarders crisscross in and out of pedestrian traffic, flipping off benches and walls, and sending their boards flying through the air, according to residents’ accounts. Destruction of private and public property aside, the VanOrnums say they are afraid one of the skaters will get hurt or hurt someone else.

“I think skateboarding is great, but pedestrians beware,” said Jean VanOrnum, who has suggested that the city set up a park exclusively for skateboards. “Little kids, older adults (have) to get out of the way. A loose skateboard is head level for a toddler.”

Neighbor Betty Banks said the skaters’ early-morning rumbling outside her home wakes her up. Although nearby businesses close at 2 a.m., “the skaters don’t go home.”

Banks added that when she and her husband, Charles, try to chase them away, the skaters “give us the finger and . . . abuse us.”

The city Traffic Affairs Committee will consider the request for a skateboard ban this week, said City Traffic Engineer Rich Edmonston, but he added that there may not be enough pedestrian traffic in the area to justify recommending a ban.

“The (city) council has not given staff an indication that they’re of a mind to restrict skateboards in a lot of places unless it truly presents a safety problem,” he said.

Skateboards are now banned at the Balboa Pier, the Fun Zone on Balboa Peninsula, Marine Street on Balboa Island, the foot of Newport Pier, and in all areas with a grade of 6% or more.