The City Council’s decision to make riding bikes in the Daniel
Yetter Memorial Skate Park a misdemeanor crime is a perplexing
quandary for both local youth and leadership. Telling local bike
riders they’re not allowed to use the skate park without providing
an alternative is unfair.
The City Council’s decision to make riding bikes in the Daniel Yetter Memorial Skate Park a misdemeanor crime is a perplexing quandary for both local youth and leadership. Telling local bike riders they’re not allowed to use the skate park without providing an alternative is unfair.
Let’s remember why the skate park was built in the first place: to give local kids a safe place to ride their skateboards where they won’t be a public nuisance or at risk of being hit by cars. It’s a place where kids can engage in positive recreation and that keeps them away from drugs, gangs and other destructive activities. So why should young bike riders be told to hit the bricks?
Granted, banning the bikes because of the risk of serious injury to skate boarders makes some sense, but there must be some compromise or alternative because it’s counterproductive to turn local kids into criminals for using a skate park intended to prevent that very thing. Likewise, charging kids with a misdemeanor for using a park designed to keep them out of trouble smacks of hypocrisy.
It’s comical that the once demonized skaters of the world who had nowhere to practice their sport will soon be replaced on the most-persecuted list by bicyclists, at least in Hollister anyway.
Why not develop time periods where only bikes are allowed and periods where only skateboards are allowed? It’s obvious the bikers want to use the park and Hollister’s police chief has made it clear his force has had problems enforcing the ordinance. There’s just something inherently wrong with ticketing a kid and taking away their bike for doing the same thing the skaters are allowed to do. Creating a double standard isn’t the right solution.
If safety concerns can’t be overcome to allow bikers and skaters, then the city should find an alternative location for bike riders to play before the ordinance goes into effect. Perhaps clearing out some of the weed infested areas adjacent to the skate park and allowing the kids to build their own ramps there could be a good start. Then, when the money is available in the budget or through fund raising, construct a similar facility as the skate park exclusively for bikers. Finding a local community-minded contractor willing to donate some time and materials for constructing a bike park would be even better.
Whatever the case, punishing kids for being kids is not good government and making criminals out of our youth for merely riding a bike in the skate park is a draconian step unworthy of Hollister’s stamp of approval.
