Tired of Hassles, Skateboarders Seek Own Space

Trendy Southern California has long been a leading manufacturer in the $600-million skateboard industry, but in recent times has lagged far behind locales such as the San Francisco Bay area, Canada and even Poland when it comes to skateboard parks.

Now, citing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--in this case, the freedom to skateboard--hundreds of teenage enthusiasts across Los Angeles County are lobbying city parks and recreation boards to build skateboard parks. As a result, nearly a dozen of the projects are in the works.

Glendale, Claremont, Palmdale and Diamond Bar have completed plans to join the ranks of the growing number of city-funded parks in operation, including ones in Huntington Beach and Temecula. Cities including Santa Clarita, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach are also investigating the possibility, and Los Angeles is conducting a feasibility study for Venice Beach.

The Edge, a private park in Irwindale, is the only skateboard park currently open in Los Angeles County.

“We get kicked out everywhere we go,” said Mike Sliff, 15, who along with pal Kelly Ress, 14, have spearheaded the movement for a city skateboard park on the Hermosa Beach-Redondo Beach border. “If we had a park, everyone would go there instead.”

Skateboarding has long been a popular pastime among Southern California youths, but municipal codes prohibit skateboarding in most commercial districts. Enthusiasts often get ticketed in downtowns and booted from sidewalks and parking lots.

Though privately funded skateboard parks were abundant in the 1970s and early ‘80s, the number of California parks dropped from 70 to 16 as cities and business owners grew concerned with liability, according to the Santa Barbara-based International Assn. of Skateboard Companies.

In recent years, however, state legislation has made it easier for cities and businesses to take the risk of providing a legal place to skateboard. Passage of a 1992 law allowed cities to post “Skate at your own risk” signs, and Assemblyman Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside) has introduced legislation to amend the state’s liability law.

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Morrow has proposed adding skateboarding to the state’s list of hazardous recreational activities, which includes pistol and rifle shooting, tree climbing and spelunking. Should his bill become a law, public entities would not be liable to anyone who participates in such a sport.

“Cities are concerned about all these Evel Knievel’s,” said Morrow, referring to the daredevil tricks that skateboarders perform. “If the bill passes, more cities will be able to build parks for them.”

Skateboard parks have cropped up in the wake of municipal restrictions on skateboarding on public streets and sidewalks and in parking lots. Those restrictions were met with a backlash from enthusiasts who demanded a place to perform their wily tricks, such as a trip-flip or an Ollie, a mid-air flip in which the skateboarder typically lands on a bench, planter, curb or handrail.

Huntington Beach opened a 2,500-square-foot skateboarding facility at Murdy Park in 1993 and another park at Huntington Beach High School in 1994 after hundreds of young people complained about an ordinance that bans skateboarding in its commercial district. The city treats its $75,000 parks, complete with concrete benches, metal hand rails and curbs, like any another recreational site.

“We have more accidents on the softball diamond than the skate park,” said Supt. of Recreation and Community Services Bill Fowler.

Temecula opened a supervised $2-a-day one-acre park last June, the largest skateboard park in California, and rents out mandatory safety equipment to those who don’t have it. Huntington Beach merely posts signs requiring helmets, knee pads and safety equipment at its unsupervised cement parks. Most skateboarders go without.

Some say that supervision is a must to ensure safety. Heidi Lemmon, president of the Santa Monica-based Skate Parks Assn., which produces a guide to the 600 skateboard parks worldwide, including 24 in Poland, favors supervision. She calls unsupervised parks unsafe, particularly since most skateboarders are teenage boys.

“Baseball has umpires--every other sport is supervised,” Lemmon said. “Cities want cheap, no maintenance facilities, but this can be a hard-core crowd.”

However, skateboarders don’t want all the rules that go along with having supervision, calling them uncool and unnecessary. At this point, though, many say they would rather have a supervised park than no park at all.

Glendale plans to build an unsupervised 10,000-square-foot skating area at Montrose Community Park this summer. Private parks are under construction in Gardena and Culver City and are scheduled to open before summer.

“Everyone else has a park but us,” said Ress, of Hermosa Beach. “Skating is an art form and we should have a park for our needs.”