Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 11, 1995 TAG: 9504180031
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Tonight, Chief Bill Brown will be watching to see if Town Council makes it just plain illegal to skate on downtown sidewalks.
Among the list of things council will decide upon is an ordinance that would forbid anyone to skateboard, roller skate or bicycle on sidewalks in the downtown district. The area is loosely defined as the streets between Turner and Miller streets to the west and east, respectively, and Otey and Church streets to the south and north, respectively. (It is defined specifically within the ordinance.)
Chief Brown said business owners and other citizens have been complaining about the skateboarders for the last year. Since November, police dispatchers have heard three to four complaints a week.
"Citizens and merchants are calling for the police to do something," Brown said.
His officers have tried asking skaters to take their sport elsewhere, but, "This didn't work. They [the skaters] just said, 'Hey, ain't no law''' against it.
The ordinance, if passed, would subject violators to a citation and a fine of up to $25.
But a group of 12- to 15-year-old skateboarders, caught taking a break Friday on a bench at the corner of College Avenue and Main Street, when asked what they would do if they were fined, shouted, "Skate! Just skate!"
"What's wrong with skateboarding?" asked Danny Ha.
"It's just a lot of kids trying to have fun," said his buddy, Will Taylor.
The skateboarders' habits are no fun, though, for Dianne Myers, who works at the Carol Lee Doughnut Shop on College Avenue, or her customers.
The skaters knock people down, knock doughnuts out of customers' hands, and sometimes lose control of their boards and careen into parked cars, Myers said.
"If they'd just skate over there," she said, pointing to Henderson Lawn, "but it's just on this sidewalk.
"It's just got to be unreal."
Brown said he has some sympathy for the skateboarders, and he admits the ordinance's enforcement may prompt skaters to take their fun to private lots - where they might invoke trespassing charges.
"We're between a rock and a hard place," Brown said. "The bottom line in this thing is public safety."
by CNB