Skating Controversy

They’re chased from the streets, kicked out of the parks. Their property is confiscated; they are accused of giving their communities a “bad image.” Who are these oppressed individuals? They are your hometown skateboarders.

Skaters today feel like they’re as misunderstood as their foreign terminology of “ollies, kickflips, nose slides, fakies and half pipes.”

“Most skaters aren’t your average high class people, but they don’t bother people,” says Sasha Turner, a recent Ferris graduate and skateboard fan. “Rich shoppers might think they’re hooligans because of the way they dress or wear their hair.”

In Spokane, a proposal is currently being drafted to ban all wheeled devices (skateboards included) from city sidewalks. Police and City Hall officials have declared skaters a risk to pedestrians, and the boarders have been described as possible contributors to a downtown image problem.

Believe it or not, most skateboarders were not attracted to the sport as an outlet for destructive inclinations or as an opportunity to scare off shoppers. They simply enjoy skating and would rather be left alone.

“(Skateboarding) gives you a sense of freedom,” says Eli Bickerton, a 1994 Ferris graduate who spends most of his summer days skating in Riverfront Park and under the freeway.

“When you get your driver’s license, that’s a freedom. But then you have to start paying for gas and insurance,” he explains. “That’s a drag. It doesn’t cost money to skate.”

Bickerton’s friend, Joe Vitt, a 16-year-old who jokes about attending the “School of Skateboarding,” elaborates on the attraction of skating: “When you learn a new trick, it’s a rush, like a high. It’s not like a drug high. It makes you feel good about yourself; it’s a sense of accomplishment.”

Bickerton and Vitt have had run-ins with the city before.

“Whenever we build ramps under the freeway, they bash them up and so we have to move downtown,” says Bickerton.

Unfortunately, the welcome there is no more friendly. Police often bar skaters from certain downtown areas and after a couple of warnings, they end up confiscating skateboards.

Still, police/skateboarder relations in Spokane are fairly tame, according to Cliffy Massey, a Post Falls resident and sophomore at Falls Christian Academy. Massey skates in both Spokane and Coeur d’Alene.

“The cops around Spokane are pretty cool,” he says. “If they’re going to be cool about skating, then I’ll be cool.

“But in Coeur d’Alene (where skating has been banned from certain streets since the late 1980s), cops are really rude,” Massey says. “Sometimes if they see me on the sidewalk, they’ll start chasing me. I just keep running.”

So what is the answer? Skateboarders are sure that banning skating on sidewalks would prove ineffective. Instead, they suggest cities offer a positive alternative to skating on city streets by designing skate parks or other areas where skaters will be left alone.

“The only way we’ll keep off the sidewalks is if they build us stuff to skate on,” believes Massey. “If there was stuff under the freeway, I’d be there all day.”

Coeur d’Alene is headed in the right direction. After many years of conflict, ground is now being broken for a new skate park. The city donated the property, and materials are either being donated or funded through car washes, raffles and other fund-raisers.

Coeur d’Alene’s skate park, located west of the city park and two blocks from the lake, is being built in three stages. Presently, benches, rails, walls and ramps - things that used to cause trouble for the skaters in the city - are being installed. The second phase will bring an in-line hockey rink. Plans for the final stage include a ramp, called a “snake run,” which will run into a large swimmingpool-shaped pit, known as a “bowl.”

Nancy Heffter, an adult who has headed the project, is pleased to admit, “In the past year, the community has been pretty positive. They realize that skaters need a place of their own.”

Wallace, Idaho, is envisioning a skate park in its future as well. At the moment, skaters enjoy a half pipe located under the freeway. It was donated to the city.

According to Keith Snyder, one of many who are planning the skate park, between 50 and 100 different skaters have used the half pipe this summer.

“Rollerbladers and skateboarders from Coeur d’Alene, Kalispell, Helena and Missoula hear about the half pipe and are willing to travel a day or two to use it,” he said.

So how is it that Wallace’s half pipe remains undisturbed and injury liability is not a concern as it is in Spokane? According to Snyder and information he was given by founders of the successful Lewiston skate park, liability insurance should not be a problem.

“As long as it’s a park setting, which means we aren’t charging an entry fee, then the liability is low and it’s already covered,” he says.

In addition to wanting skate parks, skateboarders want one other thing: some understanding from the general public of them and their sport.

Rich Kimpel, an employee of Spokane’s U Skate, explains that serious skaters dedicate all of their waking hours to skating.

“It’s not just a bunch of kids rolling around,” he said. “People have to be dedicated.

“In the late `80s, skateboarding was associated with a hard-core, biker image. It’s not the same kind of badboy thing it used to be. In this day and age it’s more like gymnastics; it’s a lot of hard work.”

Because of their dedication to skateboarding, these teens will not be giving up their sport because of the passage of a law.

“We’ll try to stay out of people’s way and they’ll try to stay out of ours, but we won’t just quit,” Massey said.

Sitting on a corner across the street from Riverfront Park, Vitt argues with the city’s complaint that skaters scar downtown’s image.

“People come downtown to shop, not to stare at skaters. There’s nothing wrong with us; we just dress a little bit differently.”

Vitt laughs as he watches strangers passing on the sidewalk and points out, “There are people weirder than us downtown.”