The Medicine Hat Skateboard Association pose in the park after Monday's council meeting, in which city council heard a presentation from the MHSA on relaxing rules about skateboarding downtown.--PHOTO COURTESY OF SAM LARSEN
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Sam Larsen is looking forward to the night the city’s skateboard bylaw is removed.
Larsen, the Medicine Hat Skateboard Association president, moved to Medicine Hat six months before the 2004 bylaw came into effect. Larsen said if the new amended bylaw passes, allowing skateboarders on sidewalks and roadways downtown again, boards will hit the streets that night.
“People will be downtown skating and that Tuesday, for sure,” Larsen said. “We will make a plan to go skate downtown and support some businesses and enjoy the downtown core. Because right now, it’s hard. We want to be down there but the truth is, it’s like you almost feel not welcome.”
The public roads bylaw was up for amendment at Monday’s city council meeting. The amendment proposes changes to add e-scooters as a form of transportation and repeal the former bylaw prohibiting skateboards in the entire downtown and other specified areas of the city.
Repealing the bylaw and adding e-scooter and skateboard definitions into the parks and public roads bylaw would allow skateboarding on sidewalks, unless signs were otherwise posted, or other trail or walk users were present.
Council passed the first reading and will be back on the docket at their next meeting in two weeks.
Larsen appreciated the support they had at Monday’s council meetingÂ
“We had 100 people there to support us, business owners, parents, teachers, parents, our skate school students, people that we had never met, came up to us and they’re like, we’re here to support you guys 100 per cent,” Larsen said. “It’s a good feeling to know that people are listening, that’s for sure.”
A presentation was made by members of the Medicine Hat Skateboard Association, as well as members of the skateboarding community. Larsen, who was in attendance but did not speak, said he was proud the recently elected council was listening.
“A lot of cities have a city council that don’t actually care to hear what they’re saying, or maybe it goes in one ear and out the other,” Larsen said. “I feel like the city council was spot on with what they were saying. They were really listening, the feedback they were giving us was all positive.”
Larsen said the next step for the skateboarding association is making a trip downtown to talk with businesses and help put a face to their cause.
“We’re not trying to come down and cause trouble, we’re just trying to come support Medicine Hat,” Larsen said. “Our goal right now is to go down, make some relationships with business owners that might think differently of us, and try to help them understand, we just want to come support your business.”
He said they’re organizing a downtown cleanup in the coming weeks of First street, Second Street, Third Street, right from Dairy Queen to the train tracks. Larsen said they will do the cleanup regardless of what happens with the bylaw.
“Just to show people we’re here we care and we just want to be present in people’s lives. We want to make a difference,” Larsen said.
