Selectmen to consider skateboard, bike ban

EAST MILLINOCKET – Fearing injuries and potential liability, town selectmen will meet Monday to discuss banning skateboards, bicycles, in-line skates, scooters and skates from town sidewalks.

Small groups of teens who have taken to riding sidewalks, particularly along Main Street, unintentionally threaten the safety of pedestrians, Administrative Assistant Shirley Tapley said Wednesday.

“It’s very dangerous,” Selectman Rick Nicholson said Wednesday. “We have had a couple of pretty good mishaps with them – people running into doors, old ladies running into bikes. We are trying to get some control on that.”

If enacted, the ordinance would fine violators $25 on first offense and $30 for subsequent offenses, according to a draft copy of the proposed change in the ordinance. The original ordinance was written in 1947 and charged violators $1 for a first offense.

The fine, it is hoped, would discourage teens from riding on the new sidewalks on Main Street, which are among the most congested areas in town, Nicholson and Tapley said.

“Most doors open out on Main Street, so you can imagine the kind of problems that could occur,” she said.

The ordinance might have been voted on last Monday except that selectmen disagreed on its wording. Selectmen questioned the wisdom of banning skateboarding or bicycle riding in less-congested areas of town or of only targeting Main Street. Under the proposed ordinance, children properly supervised by parents could face fines.

Police Chief Garold Cramp will discuss the issue at Monday’s meeting, Tapley said.

Common sense should clarify any ambiguities, Nicholson said. The idea is not to punish riders who are well-behaved; merely to prevent injury and liability.

Nor is it to eliminate skateboarding. Town officials and volunteers are working to raise funds to build a skateboarding park at a town recreation complex behind the town tennis courts on North Street, Selectman David MacLeod said.

After going dormant for most of the winter, that effort is reviving with a bottle drive this weekend. Town youths involved in the effort will meet with Millinocket kids to gauge their interest, said MacLeod, who is among the drive’s organizers. Grants to fund the park have been applied for.

“We have a lot of people willing to donate time and materials and stuff. We are getting there,” he said.

Anyone interested in donating time or money to the skateboard park effort should call MacLeod at 746-3028.