By Aaron Hoerst
Black slippery curbs, sticky hand rails, and lots of injuries. This is how most people see the sport of aggressive in-line skating, a very new and progressive art. One of the most wasted materials is wax, which is applied to curbs or handrails. But that is not the strange part, skaters jump on the curb or rail and slide down it on their skates. This is called grinding. Added to that skaters also jump off, over, and into all sorts of structures.
These stunts are, as you would guess, very dangerous to perform. Now comes the big problem: Liability (responsibility). That means that if a skater hurts himself the owner of the property is Liable and could get sued. So they restrict skaters from skating in most areas, but of course they do not follow that so they have police enforcing it and giving fines.
But you must be thinking “Where can they skate?” There are designated areas like: all parks except for Glen Lake station and basketball/tennis courts. But to skaters, that is not enough, they want a skate park. There is rumor of the city building one in the parking lot of Cheap Skate, but it’s only an idea. But if you want to support it you can get a group together and propose a sit in meeting with your local city hall: Until then the skaters will continue to ruin public property.