Skateboarding advocates are lobbying city hall to overturn a bylaw legalizing graffitti on skateboard surfaces.
Members of Ottawa’s skateboard community want to make sure municipal officials hear their call for new city facilities and rules for their sport.
Representatives from the Centretown store Antique Skateshop and the Ottawa skaters it serves had plans to march this week from the Florence Street shop to nearby McNabb Park. They're telling the city they want a new outdoor skateboard park installed there as part of a green-space redevelopment spearheaded by Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes.
The proposed McNabb Park skate ramps are just one of the issues being raised by Antique’s staff and clients, says store owner Aaron Cayer. Since the business opened last March, they’ve also been lobbying the city for an indoor skate park somewhere in Ottawa.
Adam Warzynczak, one of Antique’s team riders, says the store’s owners run bus trips to Montreal so Ottawa’s skaters can use an indoor facility in that city.
Cayer says skateboarding advocates are also asking the city to overturn a bylaw introduced in 2009 that says graffiti on ramps in skateboard parks is legal.
Cayer, who also serves as a representative on the Ottawa Skateboard Community Association, says the store has given the community a new face.
“We’ve been doing this type of activism for more than 10 years,” he says. “Having a name and an organized group gives us a lot more credibility than just a couple guys out on the street.”
Cayer says the group’s campaign for an indoor park is strongly backed by Ottawa’s young skateboarders, who are going to great lengths to be able to skate in the winter.
He says they’ve been skating inside schools and indoor parking lots, and he’s even seen kids shovelling snow off of skateboard ramps at the city’s outdoor parks.
“I don’t see kids out shovelling baseball diamonds,” he says. “There’s just something more to this activity that’s really driving kids.”
Cayer says there’s already been response from the city.
He says Kitchissippi Coun. Katherine Hobbs has expressed interest in having an indoor facility in her ward, and he’s heard from several councillors who want to see the graffiti bylaw overturned.
Warzynczak says the people behind Antique have great passion for the sport, and that’s helped the Ottawa skateboard community accept them with open arms.
“You could ask any skater in Ottawa, and they would probably say Antique is a cornerstone in the skateboarding community . . . We’ve become such an important part of the community.”
He says Cayer brought his passion for skateboarding with him when he opened the store. He says the activism and involvement is what makes Antique so special for the city.
“It sets us apart from (other stores) in the city, if not the country.”
The store’s manager, Kyle Robertson, says staff members don’t treat the shop like store, but like a hub for the community.
“It’s not like Antique alone is doing (the activism). We don’t care what store you shop at,” Robertson said.
“If we all make more noise . . . we’ll come out on top.”
Cayer was hoping to make a lot of noise on the march to McNabb Park near Bronson and Gladstone avenues.
The city has already committed about $1 million to revamping the park.
He said the goal was to get 200 people to march in hopes of showing the city how passionate Ottawa’s skateboarders are about their favourite activity.
“We’re getting these kids involved in the political process over something they believe in at a very young age.”