Home > Gwinnett > Rick Badie / My Opinion > Archives > 2006 > March > 18
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Duluth teens campaign for own skateboard park
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They just want a place to skate.
A public venue to perform their twists, turns, flips and dips. A concrete shell with ramps, pipes and stairs in Duluth, their hometown.
Thanh Le, a Duluth High senior, is spearheading a campaign to get a skateboard park. He and four friends are collecting signatures to present to city officials. He’s written City Hall as well as AJC Gwinnett News.
“We are tired of being chased out of parking lots, cited for trespassing and hit by cars,” he wrote.
Le began skateboarding three years ago, when he was a freshman. He likes the adrenaline rush the extreme sport gives him. He claims he loves the pain that comes from a spill.
And he has one other reason for loving the sport. “The girls dig it,” Le told me.
His campaign for a skateboard park arose out of an assignment in a political systems class. Students were told to write about something they’d like to change. Le took it beyond the classroom.
“I’ve always been taught to make a difference,” he said. “Now, it’s just become a habit. I feel strongly that this will bring the city of Duluth together. Maybe the city will give us some land. Help us out.”
Without an established venue, Le and his crew “catch air” wherever they can. The town’s curbs, sidewalks and parking lots become their playgrounds. Any place with concrete and edges. You might see street skaters in and around the Duluth Town Green. It’s fun. It’s also illegal. The cops show up and tell them to split.
My sense is that Le and his pals dislike being outlaws. If they did, they wouldn’t take such a diplomatic and democratic approach to finding a solution.
Last summer, some teens made sport out of spray-painting graffiti on buildings in Norcross and Lilburn. The taggers were brazen enough to contact me via e-mail to say their desecration served a purpose. It delivered a message, that they lacked a place to hang out. Odd thing, though: Their graffiti never said such a thing.
In Gwinnett, we have two skateboard parks. One is at Ronald Reagan Park between Lilburn and Lawrenceville. The other one is at Pickneyville Park in Norcross. Two other county-run parks are in the works in Suwanee and Dacula. And of course there’s the private facility — United Skate Park at Discover Mills. But skating there will cost you.
The location of the public parks and the expense associated with the private one keep Le and his friends away. They want something closer to home. Something free. Something they can call their own.
“Our effort in this is 110 percent,” Le said. “I would really like to see this become a reality.”
Then Le said something profound. If your city doesn’t have a skateboard park, he said, then your city IS a skateboard park.
That’s something for Duluth officials to ponder.
