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Friday, July 15, 2011

Skateboards Can Deteriorate Infrastructure

The images above are from Court Plaza in south Salisbury. Mr. Robinson had a shop there that caused quite a bit of problems for the tenants/customers in that Shopping Center.

Kids would come flying by businesses on the sidewalk as customers would open the door to exit the businesses and in many cases almost get run over.

Now if you're anything like me, I loved to ride a skateboard when I was a kid. Heck, you might even say it caused all of the brain damage I have today, (lol) because helmets weren't even invented back then.

All kidding aside, there's a time and a place for this kind of activity and quite frankly the City of Salisbury has dropped the ball for too many years where skate boarders are concerned. I know one is in the works for the City Park but in my honest opinion they shouldn't be infringing on that open green space to build a skate park. There are plenty of other suitable locations.

More importantly there's a grave concern about such activity Downtown and I agree. I encourage the sale of them and the fact that the City has also dropped the ball on regulations as to who can or can't operate certain businesses Downtown, well, this is what you get.

Now, the infrastructure Downtown is already falling apart. Skateboarders will speed up that process, without any doubt.


As you can see above, Downtown already has a problem. But there's more...


The City/County already recognize skateboarders as a problem and have implemented ways to stop then from doing dangerous tricks, (photos on railing above). In the last picture above, one skateboarder jumped onto the step on the entrance of a building on the Plaza and fell flat on his face on the concrete/brick ground. None of these skateboarders were wearing safety helmets/equipment.

So, in the court of public opinion, should skateboarding be allowed in Downtown Salisbury, or do you see this as a nuisance/problem in the very near future?

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think downtown is an appropriate place for skateboarding; at the same time, since there are almost no businesses there, I don't know if skateboards are that much of a problem. I was surprised to see the Skate shop when I drove through downtown. I was there again today, and all I could think of was this: How many other counties of about 100,000 population have a county seat with almost no action going on? I have seen other towns that had malls built outside of town but the downtown area was still thriving (e.g. Easton, Chamberburg Pa, and I'm sure many others).

Alex said...

At least when kids are skateboarding, they tend to stay away from gangs and drugs.

Anonymous said...

Salisbury is not kid friendly, never has been, never will be. Too many fuddy duddy's in local government. Kids are gonna be kids and they are gonna skateboard, ride bikes, skate, etc. Not all kids are privileged and have money to go do things. They are out exercising and trying not to be obese so leave them alone.

Anonymous said...

isn't there already a city ordinance about this- seems like it just isn't being enforced

Anonymous said...

Well when we send messages to kids that we care more about a dog play area than a skatepark should we expect no less? Give kids a place to skate in an orderly safe environment! That way the safety equipment, HELMET, will be mandatory. The people that skateboard in this town have a non-profit all set up have worked very hard to raise approx. $9-$10k on their own! Invest in these young people and show them they are more important than a place to take your dog to crap and talk to other dogs!

Anonymous said...

Skate boarding is not the problem. Destroying public property (or private property) is a problem. It is government's job to police those who commit crimes and destroying property is a crime.

Skate boards OK. Messing up concrete or hand rails CRIME.

Understood?

Anonymous said...

Build them a safe place to skate or deal with them. Closest skate park is Ocean City. Every time someone proposes a bmx track or skate park it gets shot down by the city or county. Closest place to race bikes for kids is Milford De. There are no bike friendly parks for kids anywhere on delmarva. In fact riding a bike at SU gets you arrested and no trespassed for one year.

Anonymous said...

Dog park, skate park are good things.

Not everything should go in the city park though. That poor park gets junkier looking every year. What's next, rollercoasters and ring toss booths?

Come on people. Stop b*tchin and start recommending space to put this stuff or donate a lot for them.

It was stupid of the county to build a skate park, then fill it in. Next the city says it'll do one when they can't even fix a darn pothole.

And if kids ain't got a place to play, why are we getting all these stupid awards for how great we are? Spend the time and money on trying to get these gold stars on producing something real that doesn't mean some homeowner has to live next door to the noise.

Anonymous said...

this town is nearly all retail

if you aren't spending money then

you don't have many options for

places to hang out and have fun

not much for kids to do here, sadly

Anonymous said...

Then maybe its time we build the kids in Salisbury a skatepark.

Jaycee said...

3:48 I second that!

How much revenue do you think the "Ocean City" Dew Tour will generate?

Anonymous said...

25-30 years ago there was a skate park in the Salisbury City Park. I belive where the dog park is now. What happened to it ? I always thought it was probably a liability issue but if OC can have a skate park all these years, why can't Slaisbury?

Anonymous said...

No to skateboarding on city streets or properties.

The City can afford to build a basic skateboard park.

Do something positive for a change.

Anonymous said...

Make Vic get out and earn his keep.

Anonymous said...

These were the same issues 25 years ago in Salisbury. As an avid skater and surfer back then, we had the same challenges back then. Our answer was to get off our butts and actually construct areas to skate on/in. We had 4 or 5 different places we hung out at. These were ramps built behing friends houses. Skateboarding is not the enemy, however it is the kids who are doing the destruction. For example, we have a big no skateboarding sign infront of our business. I had to ask 3 youths to leave the property because they were "grinding" on the handrails right in front of it. When asked politely to leave the property, the decided to get ignorant. I agree that they need someplace to skate, however it is their responsibility as well. How about they have a fundraiser to help generate the revenue to build such a project? When Salisbury built it's origional skate park in the 80's, there were fundraisers for that one. Everyone feels they are "entitled" to this. The only entitlement is for people to get off their butts and do something about it. Why doesn't someone donate a space for this? Thats what I thought. B*tch about a problem but do nothing to help solve it.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but forgot to add that the nearest skate park is not in Ocean City, it is on Pennsylvania Ave in Delmar, MD!

Anonymous said...

Many fund rasiers have been done for construction of a skate park in Salsibury--where did all that money go? Ocean Pines has a wonderful skate park for the kids, Delmar has a skate park, Ocean City has a skate park, but not Salisbury. Both Delmar and Ocean Pines are free of charge. There is nothing in Salisbury for our kids to do unless you have lots of money, absolutely nothing and everyone just wants to complain about the youth being on the street.

Anonymous said...

everyone just wants to complain about the youth being on the street.

July 16, 2011 8:52 PM

I thought the latest story was they were sitting in the house watching tv and playing video games and getting obese and their parents were not good parents for letting them get fat and lazy so the state had to take them away.

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