'No skateboarding' signs scare away skaters

Spring time has rolled around and with it brings sun, shorts and skateboards. In response to the increased number of skateboarders, IU Physical Plant has installed new signs warning skateboarders to keep off IU property.\n"We've put them in before," said Dave Hurst, manager of Campus Division for the Physical Plant. "They've disappeared."\nSigns reading "Skateboarding Prohibited" were put up around spring break time. They're located near buildings where skateboarders are known to hang out. \n"There are some popular spots for those activities," Hurst said. "That's what we've targeted."\nThese spots include the Jordan Avenue side of the IU Auditorium, the area between Rawles Hall and Myers Hall, behind the Indiana Memorial Union and a new location at the business school Graduate and Executive Education Center.\nHurst said skateboarders have been an ongoing problem. The signs were originally installed three to four years ago but have disappeared twice before. \nIU Police Department Lt. Jerry Minger said the signs were put in their current locations because of previous violations in those spots and to protect the decorative limestone. He said the signs are another step that help justify an officer's actions when he or she confronts a skateboarder.\n"What it does (is) it informs people who want to be informed; those that don't will see it as an intrusion," Minger said.\nMinger said skateboarding presents a dangerous situation for pedestrians and cars around the University. He said there have been instances of skateboarders losing control of their boards, turning them into projectiles. Also, the damage to the limestone has cost thousands of dollars.\n"It does a tremendous amount of damage to the stone," Hurst said. "That stone is expensive."\nBut Rick Olsen, owner of True Skateboards, 118 E. Sixth St., said that it's not the skateboards causing the damages, but bikers.\n"It's always seen as us crying, we don't like it when kids on bikes go to skate spots because they actually damage it," Olsen said.\nMinger said most of the violations stem from skateboarding and that bikers and in-line skaters do not present as much of a threat.\nOlsen said the signs are good in that they tell skaters where it's illegal to skate, but there are still problems. He said he knows people who have been stopped for just riding skateboards to class.\n"People who are trying to get class, who are paying a god-awful amount of money, are getting yelled at," Olsen said.\nOn a skateboarder's first violation, his or her name will be taken and recorded and will be warned of trespassing. If the skateboarder is a repeat offender, he or she will be charged with trespass, Minger said. \n"It is very unfortunate that we have to approach it with some sort of law enforcement means," Minger said. "We wish we didn't."\nIn some cases, the skateboarder's board could be confiscated, Minger said, but OIsen contends that this is a legal gray area. \n"All these kids are doing is what they love to do," Olsen said.\nBloomington has announced the construction of a new skatepark at Upper Cascades Park and Golf Course. The skatepark could help the problem as it is now, attracting skateboarders away from the University. \nMinger estimates 90 percent of the skateboarders are not IU students, but high schoolers. He said he is optimistic that it will help, but Olsen said he is not so sure.\n"If it's done correctly and (is) a good place where kids want to go, and a key point, if it's big enough, then yes," Olsen said. He added there are problems now with the design and only having 50 percent of the originally budgeted space. \nHurst, Minger and Olsen all said the signs are good at least in informing students and non-students of IU's no-skateboarding policy.\n"If it prevents one person from doing it, then it's worth it," Hurst said.