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Rueben Baker's Fine withdrawn

gmac's picture
April 27, 2009 - 02:43 — gmac

Rueben Baker's fine for skating on the footpath in the Gisborne CBD has been withdrawn by GDC and Gisborne Police

See the Gisborne District Council website for more info
http://www.gdc.govt.nz/fine-for-skateboarder-withdrawn/

May 2, 2009 - 05:57 — Remo
Remo's picture

Way to go, Reuben! What is the CBD's official skate policy?

That is EXCELLENT news!

Great front page coverage of it in yesterday's Gisborne Herald, too:
http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/Default.aspx?s=3&s1=2&id=11214

I think this is absolutely wonderful, and in no way mean to diminish that with my following ponderings, but....
the article ended with a quote:


Mayor Meng Foon said while they would not be adjusting the fine set in the bylaw, police were now on the same level with their knowledge of the bylaw and the fine it should incur.

"The police have been made known of the fines for the infringement, but we still discourage people from skating wherever possible, mainly for the safety of others," he said.

"We still get complaints from shop owners, or elderly people who can't move out of the way quickly and fear they might be capped in the shins by a skateboarder. But it was obvious $750 was very excessive."


Thank you very much Mayor Meng Foon for addressing the issue. The spirit of your message is clearly that we skateboarders are not to put other people's safety at risk, and that is indeed quite reasonable.

I am interested in clarifying a bit more behind the Mayor's comment to discourage people from skating wherever possible. Obviously the comment is not intended to outlaw skateboarding in the entire Gisborne District, nor does it even pretend to imply that skateparks will be removed. No, I am "sure" that it must be referring to Gisborne's CBD specifically, does that seem reasonable? And even more so, it must be referring to the CBD's sidewalks specifically, right? Or does it?

I mean, we can still skate along sidewalks that are not in the CBD, can't we? You know, the sidewalks that do NOT have "No Skateboarding" signs on them? And in the CBD, we can still use our preferred mode of transportation - our eco-friendly push-powered skateboards - to get around town, can't we? Sure, it feels a heck of a lot more dangerous to be skateboarding in the roads with motorised vehicle traffic, but just like our fellow eco-friendly pedal-powered bicyclers, certainly we must at least still be able to do that, yes?

While I am not sure of the answers to the above (but will seek to clarify them), I am sure that the spirit of Mayor Meng Foon's message was simply to advise us skateboarders to respect those around us, always being aware to take their safety into account. And I assume that (with the exception of the CBD's prohibited sidewalks), it is still okay for us to have a nice cruise on our skateboards to get from A to B, whether that's on our way to one of our fine skateparks, casually cruising along our scenic riverwalk and cycling paths, or even enjoying a bit more speed skating down one of our local inclines. But at this point, I honestly don't know.

So, what's the story? What's the official stand on our particular mode of transport? Inquiring skateboarder minds want to know.

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"Skate and Create!"