Yes it appears there’s much strife on the street between skaters and the cops handing out tickets. Tickets have become a serious nuisance to the skater community, climbing by over 1400% from last year to this year. The GRPD has handed out 42 tickets already this year, where last year only 3 occurred. To me, we have a serious issue here that needs to be solved. With no good alternative for terrain to ride it seems unfair to hand out an expensive ticket, especially in impoverished areas where it can be hard to afford an expensive indoor park, or even a ride to get outside of the illegal downtown areas.

Hopefully our skatepark can answer these problems we are currently facing. With tickets doubling every time a person is issued a skateboarding ticket (whether it be skating on objects, or as mode of transportation), and the chance of the skateboard itself being impounded, there is a lot of serious amount of tension building between enforcement and skaters. Yet another reason for a free outdoor park here in GR….

Checkout Wood TV’s story here.

Chris Gray

Clemente Skatepark Committee Chair

cell: 616.635.0950

chris@clementeskatepark.org