In a Scrape : Ventura to Ban Skates, Bikes From Damaged Plaza

VENTURA —  In the first few weeks that California Plaza has been open, skateboarders have irreparably scratched and scraped its decorative steps and come dangerously close to slamming into pedestrians strolling along the new $800,000 thoroughfare.

As a result, the city of Ventura has decided to ban skateboarding, bicycling and in-line skating from the beachfront plaza starting late this week.

City leaders had hoped to hold off on such action until they could provide an alternative for local youths, namely a skateboarding park. Ojai and Camarillo are considering similar proposals.

But plans for such a facility in Ventura are still in the formative stages, and concerns over safety and property damage at the plaza prompted officials to move quickly to impose a ban.

“We weren’t going to be able to wait and allow people to use California Plaza as freely as they would like,” City Manager Donna Landeros said in an interview Tuesday.

City officials can prohibit hazardous activities in public parks without council authority, which is what they have done. Enforcement of the ban will begin with posted signs, verbal warnings, citations and fines of an undetermined amount.

Local merchants and council members said they support the new restrictions.

“Anything with wheels on it is eating [the plaza] up alive,” Councilman Jack Tingstrom said. “They are going to ruin it.”

Eric Wachter, co-owner of Pineapples restaurant, which is adjacent to the plaza, has seen a few narrow misses and said he hopes that a ban will make the area safer.

“People are trying to walk down the steps to get to our restaurant and they are having to dodge skateboarders,” he said. “This is not an $800,000 skate park.”

But some skateboarders disagree.

Cruising down California Street on his board Tuesday evening, 22-year-old Martin Garza of Ventura said he occasionally skates at the plaza and considers the ban a bad idea.

“We’re not hurting anything; it’s just concrete,” he said. “This gives us an outlet. Kids would be doing a lot of destructive things to society besides chipping some meaningless concrete.”

But city officials are afraid that someone will get hurt--and skateboarders are not the only culprits. A speeding bicyclist slammed into Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures recently when he came tearing around the corner onto the Promenade. And other near-misses have been reported.

“If we don’t do something very quickly,” Landeros said, “someone will be seriously injured.”

The plaza--an open walkway with a fountain, palm trees and decorative park benches--was constructed this summer as part of the city’s downtown revitalization plan.

But even before the project was completed, skateboarders had discovered the plaza’s potential as a cool place to spin their wheels.

They hurtle by strollers and beach-goers, rending the air with the sound of wheels on concrete and the occasional “kerchunk” as another curb divot is dug out.

And the boarders grease the stairs with surf wax to heighten the ride, leaving ugly black stains on the new steps.

“Skaters like the stairs and the big drop-offs and the rails,” said 12-year-old Kenny Ruggles of Canyon Country, who said he considers the plaza steps one of the best places to hang out and perform skateboarding tricks while visiting his grandmother, a Ventura resident.

“You can ruin the place by chipping it up,” conceded his 8-year-old brother, Kyle. “But I would stay anyway because it’s a rad place.”

Tingstrom said a few reckless youths are to blame for the new ban.

“It is a shame,” he said. “The ones we have associated with have been really good kids. I think the ones who have caused us a problem have been a really small minority.”

City officials said it has not taken long for the damage to set in because of the plaza’s popularity among skateboarders.

“We knew it was going to be an attractive place for skateboarders and, lo and behold, it is,” said Mitch Oshinsky, the city’s planning and development manager.

Skateboarders contend that if the city provided them with a place to use their boards, they would stay out of public areas. Said Ian Graham, 13, of Ventura: “There’s nowhere else to skate.”

Some city officials agree.

“If you are going to prohibit it, you have to have an alternative,” said Oshinsky, who has studied skateboard parks in Huntington Beach, Palo Alto and Santa Cruz, and believes that such a facility would work well in Ventura.

Landeros and members of the council agree.

“We provide tennis courts, we provide basketball courts, we provide running trails,” Landeros said. “Why not a skateboard park?”

The push for a skateboarding park came several months ago when dozens of youths complained to the council that police routinely run them off from a plaza at Santa Clara and California streets in downtown Ventura. That site is marked with “No Skateboarding” signs.

But the stumbling block to the plan may be cost. Building such a park could cost anywhere from $80,000 to $130,000.

City officials are exploring the plan just the same. Today, they will select an architect to launch a $10,000 feasibility study. A proposal for a skateboarding park is expected to reach the City Council by late October.

“We want to do something for them,” Tingstrom said. “Banning them . . . is not going to solve the problem. Giving them something to do is.”

Times correspondent Scott Hadly contributed to this story.