NEWPORT BEACH : City Nears Decision on Skateboard Ban

After months of discussion, the City Council may make a final decision at its next meeting Nov. 9 on whether to ban skateboarding on Ocean Front.

The council, with Councilmen John Hedges and John C. Cox Jr. absent, agreed during a study session Monday that a skateboard ban on Ocean Front would be the best way to stop problems along the boardwalk that runs from West Newport to the end of Balboa Peninsula.

Other alternatives that were presented included a seasonal restriction in which no skateboards would be allowed from May 15 to Oct. 1, a summer and weekend ban and a ban on only portions of the boardwalk.

“I have no problems or any reservations of eliminating the skateboards from the sidewalk,” Councilwoman Ruthelyn Plummer said. The eight-foot-wide sidewalk is “handling hundreds of thousands of people and that’s ludicrous. We have to think of . . . the safety of people who use it.”

Some students at Newport Elementary School, which abuts Ocean Front, use skateboards as transportation, and the council discussed excluding them from a ban. However, Mayor Phil Sansone said, “I personally would ban everything on wheels.”

Councilman Clarence J. Turner said any alternatives to an all-out ban on skateboarding would be too confusing to enforce.

However, council members said that restricting skateboarding to certain hours may still be discussed at the Nov. 9 meeting.

Plummer suggested that skateboarders be restricted the same way surfers are at the city beach.

People are not allowed to surf between noon and 4 p.m.

“The surfers scream and holler and everything like that, but it works,” she said.