Thursday, Sept. 4, 2003 | 11:16 a.m.
Stern cautions and continued efforts to establish skateboarding as an organized youth sport resulted in a relatively peaceful summer at city of Las Vegas and Clark County skate parks, officials said.
It was a pleasant surprise considering that the year began with the threatened shutdown of the 10 city and six county facilities amid reports of violence, drug use, curfew violations and vandalism.
"When you have years of unsupervised activities there are going to be some problems, but with our efforts to legitimize skateboarding as a sport similar to Little League baseball or Pop Warner football, you can see the difference," said Joe Wichert, extreme sports director for the city of Las Vegas.
Wichert, who has designed local skate parks for 14 years, credited the November 2002 establishment of the Skate Park Safety Coalition, a multi-jurisdictional body that includes city, county, Metro Police and skateboard community leaders, as a key element in reducing problems.
Through that organization's efforts, a series of AmJam competitions has created a venue for an estimated 500 registered skateboarders to show off their skills before more than 25,000 spectators, including 10,000 at the March AmJam at Desert Breeze Park.
The next Las Vegas AmJam is slated for Sept. 13 at Sunny Springs Skate Park at Elkhorn Road and Buffalo Drive and is expected to draw about 500 spectators. The final AmJam event of the season on Oct. 25 at Desert Breeze, 8275 Spring Mountain Road, is expected to draw more than 5,000 enthusiasts, Wichert said.
But it wasn't the events alone that turned the skate parks around, officials said.
"We were not subtle about the message we sent out in January -- if you choose to destroy what we have offered we will close the parks and fill them in," said Doug Bradford, spokesman for Clark County Parks and Recreation.
"They got the message that was given by park police that the facilities were for their benefit and that they needed to take care of them."
Bradford agreed with Wichert that supervised activities have made a big difference, noting the county has two major skate clubs, Winchester Evolve and Cambridge, that give kids a chance to practice and have fun as a group with adult supervision.
While statistics are not kept on numbers of complaints about specific sections of parks, officials say county park police and city marshals have noticed a significant decline in problems at the skateboard areas since the lockout warnings went out.
"Graffiti remains an ongoing battle, but our patrols paint it over the next day," Bradford said. "The violence and vandalism is noticeably down.
"With the kids having gone back to school, the skate parks won't be as busy and we will get a breather -- an opportunity to do more maintenance on them."
A report by the skate coalition to the Las Vegas City Council in January was meant to serve as a wake-up call to parents and youths to help authorities rid the facilities of troublemakers and avoid any interruptions of service.
Thousands of area youths and young adults use the skate parks for skateboarding, in-line skating and BMX bike riding -- so called "extreme sports.'
City officials in January said they did not want to permanently close any of the skating facilities, but they would not rule out temporarily closing some of the parks to encourage compliance with laws.
City Council members, saying they did not want to punish a lot of law-abiding young skateboarders because of the criminal activities of a few bad apples, opted to keep the parks open and monitor the situation.
However, on Jan. 23, a day after the council meeting, Clark County shut down the Winchester Community Center Skate Park amid reports of graffiti, fist-fights and other problems.
More than a dozen young skateboarders armed with brushes and buckets of paint were allowed into the facility at Pecos-McLeod and Desert Inn roads by park police to paint over graffiti and clean the facility, resulting in its reopening the next day.
City officials over the summer posted signs warning that problems could result in temporary or indefinite closures of facilities. But Wichert says there was more to the good behavior than the closing threat.
"I believe there is a sense of pride among the skateboarders who want good facilities to enjoy their year-round sport," he said.
Bradford said the parks are working to accomplish what officials had hoped they would -- to serve as an alternative to parking lots and sidewalks in front of businesses.
"The skate parks were built in part to give kids places to go and keep them away from businesses, where they could get injured or injure others with their skateboards and bikes," Bradford said. "To a degree that has been accomplished."
In the late 1980s, skateboarders complained to officials that they were being chased from shopping centers and other public venues.
In response, local governments built the concrete facilities complete with half pipes, rails and ramps for kids to enjoy their sport.
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