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City Might Take Their Wheels

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By NICOLA M. WHITE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 20, 2007

ZEPHYRHILLS - The stern warnings don't work. Neither do the $30 fines or the trespass warnings.

Teenagers continue to zip around doing 'ollies' and wheel flips in the historic downtown, where skateboarding is prohibited.
Councilman Danny Burgess and the city's police chief say they are tired of it. The skateboard wheels chip bricks, planters and decorative pavers, and the large crowds of kids at Times Square intimidate locals, they say.

So, they want to take the city's anti-skateboard measures one step further: confiscate the boards of offending skaters.

To do so would require putting an ordinance on the city's books. Burgess plans to bring up the idea of empowering police officers to confiscate skateboards at Monday night's city council meeting.

Doing so is the only way skateboarders will take seriously the warnings of city officials and police, who have issued more than 100 skateboard citations in the past two years, he said.

'That's what it's going to take to make them stop, to take away what's dear to them,' Burgess said.

In 2004, city officials listened to the pleas of local teens and opened an $85,000 skateboard park at Krusen Field on the south end of the city. The park offers tall ramps, inclines and bleacher seats and was heralded by teenagers when it first opened. The park, though, offers no shade, and the blacktop pavement sometimes melts in the hot Florida sun, skaters say.

That's why Zephyrhills High School junior Cody Mitchell, 17, rarely goes there. He lives downtown and prefers to skate in Times Square, a brick-paved area with benches, tables and a gazebo.

'It's a really fun spot to skate, and it's where all my friends are,' he said.

His skateboard cost more than $90; he doesn't like the idea of a police officer taking it away from him, especially because he doesn't think police can prove the chipped bricks and decorative plaques at Times Square are caused by skateboarders.

'It's probably caused by wear and tear,' he said.

That's not the point, Police Chief Russell Barnes maintains.

'The main property damage isn't because the skateboarders want to chip the concrete,' he said. 'They're skateboarding there to skateboard, and doing the act of skateboarding damages the concrete and other property.'

Barnes has authorized overtime for the department's school resource officers to work foot patrols between Seventh and Ninth streets and Fourth and Sixth avenues to, among other issues, help curb skateboarding. The officers also will target drug activity and vandalism, Barnes said.

On a recent weekday, more than a dozen teenagers gathered at Times Square, most of them sitting on benches and hanging out with their friends. Some whizzed along on skateboards.

'They're more worried about skateboarders than they are the other people, like the druggies,' said Ashley Ramirez, 12, a seventh-grader at Raymond B. Stewart Middle School.

The Zephyrhills City Council meets at 6 p.m. Monday at Zephyrhills City Hall, 5335 Eighth St.

Reporter Nicola M. White can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or nwhite1@tampatrib.com.

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