Bikes are normally not allowed at the skateboard park, but with no supervisors present, whose to know? photo credit: Sam Hodgson of Voice of San Diego.
by Rani Gupta / Voice of San Diego / March 30, 2009
When the city eliminated supervision at skate parks this year to save money, the parks filled with gleeful skaters who no longer had to pay $5 and be under the watchful eye of a supervisor.
Problems followed. The skate park at Robb Field at Ocean Beach was repeatedly tagged with graffiti, forcing city employees to make regular trips to clean it up. Reports surfaced of people drinking and smoking at the skate parks. Parks employees and police officers started checking in on the parks regularly.
All this was to save $282,571 a year. The move was approved in the fall to help close a $43 million midyear budget gap.
City officials say the problems have dropped off as the novelty of unattended skate parks has worn off, and some skateboarders at Robb Field recently said the mood at the park has mellowed.
[For the remainder of this article, go here for voiceofsandiego.com]
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
By the way, I know that while access was guarded there was a no bike policy, but I don’t se a mention of it on the city website…
Link to skatepark info
Cool. Many other cities have had unsupervised skate parks for decades, it’s seemed to work for them. And it was a total buzzkill when I was growing up in the mid-nineties and all these skateparks were going in and they wouldn’t let me ride my bike…
As far as popular culture is concerned, skateboarding is a recent phenomenon but one that has taken society by storm. Since its invention, skateboarding has spread throughout the world, and there are skaters in most countries of the world, on every continent (except perhaps Antarctica). You can find more stuff on the history and evolution of skateboarding, skater gear, skateboarding tricks, and the skateboarding community, as well as skateboard shops at http://skateboards.eu/
I biked by the OB Skateboard park on Monday, and it was very crowded, and hardly a helmet was worn.