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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Boarders Need Their Own Space In Spokane

Spokane has never been a haven for youth culture. In fact, the words “haven for youth culture” and “Spokane” have never even been used before in the same sentence, except possibly in misguided real estate pamphlets.

The kids who actually live here know the truth about Spokane: There’s nothing at all to do. And when we, the teenagers of “Kane Town,” actually come up with something fun to pass the time, most of adult Spokane tries to put the kibosh on it as quickly as it can.

Case in point: skateboarding.

You’ll find skateboarders all around town, but they don’t last at a location long. They’re kicked out of parking lots, off curbs and away from buildings. They’ve got nowhere to go; they’re doing nothing illegal, but they’re treated like criminals.

You can see this reaction in the faces of adults as they watch a skateboarder glide by. Most adults glare or direct a wary look at the offending thrasher, sometimes bustling over to the other side of the street.

“Most people regard skaters as menaces,” said skater Bryce Neusse.

Every skater I talked to was very dissatisfied with the city’s outlook on their hobby. Sean “Guru” Poole sums up Spokane’s attitude towards skaters simply. “It sucks,” he said.

This anti-skate attitude also pervades the local government, as it’s now illegal to skate on the streets of downtown.

A skateboarder is much less dangerous than a careless bicyclist, and yet bicycles are allowed everywhere. It seems ironic that while the city worries about not having enough police, it employs what cops it does have in stopping a kid on a skateboard trying to get to work.

And get this: The ticket amount issued to lawbreaking boarders is the same amount as tickets given for running a red light or stop sign.

“Skaters everywhere should be proud they are considered as dangerous as a ton of steel barreling through an intersection,” said North Central skater Derek Atkinson.

Spokane’s bad attitude also makes it difficult to find a place to skate. Poole says he and his friends get hassled “almost daily” and are frequently kicked out of a good skating area, sometimes after only 15 minutes.

“Almost anywhere we try to skate, it seems like it’s illegal,” he says with exasperation. He says people who tell skaters to move are “rarely nice, often rude, and sometimes downright hostile.”

I witnessed this hostility while pitifully attempting to skate with Sean and some friends. We had been skating in front of a self-service car wash on Monroe for awhile, enjoying the good weather and pavement, when a man drove up in some kind of sport utility vehicle and told us to move. He said this in a very loud, Mister-Big-Shot type voice, and then let out a profanity-laced speech for (messing) with his (stuff). He automatically assumed we were “partying” and trying to vandalize some part of the car wash. His ranting culminated in threatening to call the police if he ever saw us near the car wash again.

This man’s reaction to what was just a bunch of kids skating is a good example of Spokane’s paranoid image of skate boarders as vicious delinquents. Skater Neusse says many people feel hostile to skaters because “we get in the way.”

Obviously, if skaters had a designated area to skate a lot of the problems with the community would cease. So Neusse decided to try to get Spokane’s city government to build a skate park with ramps, half-pipes, rails and other obstacles. Skaters would have a place to skate, and local business men would stop getting so aggravated.

“Cities that have a lot fewer people like Coeur d’Alene and even Moses Lake have built skate parks,” says Nuesse. “All we need is a little bit of land.”

Nuesse plans to circulate petitions and a survey sometime soon. He’s working with the Student Leadership and Involvement group (or SLI) to bring attention to the issue.

Spokane Mayor Jack Geraghty is interested and has asked the park board to study the idea, but so far no definite action has been planned.

Maybe if they took a different look at skateboarders, they would see it our way.

The oft-conservative adults of Spokane see skaters as hoodlums, missing the devotion skaters have to their sport. Skateboarding requires an excellent sense of balance and a lot of strength. Skating is as physical as a game of baseball, and we’ve got baseball diamonds all over the city.

Skating is a sport for kids who just don’t fit into the team-spirit, win-or-lose mold. At its core, skating is a very individual sport for people who don’t always go with the flow.

Perhaps this is what Spokane adults dislike. Spokane’s narrow-mindedness towards skaters is an example of how much of a small town Spokane can be. If a skate park is built, perhaps adults will finally begin to realize this.

And as Sean Poole says, “It would be about time.”