Topics : RECREATION : Officials Put the Brakes on Skateboarding : Manhattan Beach: Complaints from merchants lead to ban in downtown area. New law draws fire from sidewalk surfers.

Zak Rangwala and Paul da Costa love to skateboard on Manhattan Beach’s challenging downtown sidewalks, but they may be skating on thin concrete.

With the wind in their hair and the rush of pavement under their feet, the South Bay teen-agers frequently jump on their boards to brave the bumpy blue tiles and dodge weekend strollers.

When the moment is right, they might even go for an “ollie impossible,” flipping their boards wildly under their feet as they race perilously close to the curb. But soon they also might get cited by police.

City officials recently posted signs banning skateboarders from the area. In response to merchants’ complaints over sidewalk surfers, the City Council voted unanimously last month to exclude them from downtown sidewalks and much of Manhattan Beach Boulevard.

“It reeks,” says Billy Peretti, an eighth-grader at Manhattan Beach Intermediate School. The new law takes aim at Peretti’s main set of wheels, his only transportation between school and work several miles away.

“It’s bogus, plain and simple,” says Mark John Hayes, 20, a Manhattan Beach surfer who cruises area streets on his skateboard when the wind-whipped waves turn bad. “What else do kids have to do?”

City officials say the skateboarders can take their fun elsewhere. The new law, which also bans skateboarders from city parking lots, is designed to protect pedestrians and parked cars from freewheeling skateboarders. Hermosa Beach has a similar law.

Officials say the boards sometimes shoot out from under skaters’ feet to dent cars or hit strollers. Since the law took effect about two weeks ago, police have issued only warnings, but eventually violators will be fined $100 to $200, said City Atty. Tim McOsker.

That’s good news to many merchants and pedestrians. Tom Scalzo, a well-tanned Manhattan Beach man, says he’s seen plenty of near-misses.

“It’s only a matter of time before some kid would nail some old lady,” says Scalzo, 33, who sits in front of a popular downtown coffee shop weekday mornings to sip java.

Scalzo grew up surfing in the South Bay, but he never skateboarded. “I’m sort of against it,” he says. “You can get hurt on those things.”

But many skateboarders say Manhattan Beach’s new law is too broad, punishing all skateboarders when only a handful skate dangerously.

“The kids could be out vandalizing,” says Eric Zucker, 24, who owns the Ocean Gear surf shop in downtown Manhattan Beach. Zucker’s shop attracts many area skateboarders who, in their baggy shorts and skateboard sneakers, sometimes practice “curb grinds” along the nearby sidewalk.

Zucker says he’s received a few complaints, but says the skateboarders outside his shop are considerate of passersby.

Many skateboarders out on the busy streets Saturday afternoon ignored the new law.

A sandy-haired teen-ager, bare-chested and bare-footed, dropped his two-foot-long board on Manhattan Beach Boulevard near Manhattan Avenue and jumped on. As a gust of wind blew off the ocean, he pushed off the sidewalk and sped down the middle of the street.

As the hum of his wheels echoed up the hill, a car motored by. He crouched low and turned toward the curb, waiting for it to pass. When the coast cleared, he tucked his body close to the ground and made a beeline toward the pier.