Couch-sleeping?

Wow, so out of touch with the real skate scene. I don’t mind wearing a helmet but if there is no booze, no drugs, and no fighting how am I supposed to impress the 15 year old skate hoes? By skating? Huh, never thought about that…

Appearently punk rock is dead.

WINNER: Bobcat!

Go away and stop making that shit.

Regards,

The collective skateboarders on the internets (TM) and in real-life.

The Action Park Alliance has never converted a free, unsupervised park into pay, supervised park.

There’s no pad nannies at APA parks. No one is told not to try a trick, or to wait their turn, or any of the things non-trained, non-skater pad nannies do at non-APA parks. Most of our employees are local skaters who want free skating and the employee discount. The average age of our “pad nannies” is 19.

Unless you want to do drugs, drink booze or get in a fight, there’s no difference between an APA park and an unsupervised park.

All the parks the APA supervises were already for-pay, supervised parks before the APA got involved. Without the APA getting involved (and reducing the city’s cost & liability), the parks would have been closed.

I understand your point. For many of us, skateparks are places to go and get crazy. But this gets into the Thrasher ’skate-and-destroy’ aspect of skateboarding. Bloody knuckles, hang-overs and couch-sleeping. Am I right?

While that’s a wonderful world, it’s not what municipal officials want. They don’t want to get sued. They don’t want the mother’s of the town complaining about drug dealers and non-skaters at the skatepark.

It’s a delicate thing for cities, you have to appreciate that. 10 years ago, it wasn’t even a discussion, as there were so few skateparks worth of a supervision operation (i.e. pro shop & concessions).

At the Glendale, AZ parks (Foothills & WARP - both very nice concrete parks) the parks are totally free and unsupervised. The APA just runs a pro-shop next door and does camps, lessons, etc…

We’re about to take over 2 parks in So Cal where you pay a $20 annual fee to cover the city’s waiver program and you can skate all you want. The park will be supervised, but again, the supervision is so non-intrusive as to be almost invisible.

The owners truly only got into it because the saw so many cities building parks with no plan, having inevitable problems, and shutting the park down.

I know there’s this ideal of a ‘council of elders’ who will zenfully lead the park’s users toward a nirvana of mutual respect and bowl carving, but that’s not always the case.

Hays

Complete skate park supervision = PAD NANNIES