Jokers Skate Shop Blog

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One of Santa Cruz’s most popular concaves of all time, the Cruz Missile 2!
The Cruz Missile 2 has added dog ears to the tail which give your back foot maximum stability and excellent response.
On the cruz missile 2 you have the capabilities of adjusting your wheel base to 2 sizes!
You can adjust your wheel base to a 14.5″ wheel base or a 15″ wheel base.
This board was designed with one thing in mind,big transitions!
Perfect for skating vert or hanging on your wall.

Cruz missile 2 concave
10.3″ x 31″
adjustable 14.5″ – 15″ wheel base
4.5″ nose
7.75″ tail

Here are two letters that ending up in our email.  They are responses from a city council member and a HB police officer to the recent letter the Huntington Beach High School PTSA is distributing about the new Huntington Beach Skatepark.

I have received your email regarding concerns about a skate park in Huntington Beach.  You may have recently received an email from members of the Huntington Beach High School PTSA.  In this email there were many unsubstantiated allegations about our experience with skate parks in the city.  In fact, we never had any significant problems with the decade-plus long history at Huntington Beach High School.    Allegations of problems only manifested when the the school district was ready to move forward with the construction of the new football stadium and track.  It was clear the the skate park not going to mesh well with the new stadium design.  Needless to say, my council colleagues found the timing of the concerns interestingly connected to final construction plans of the stadium.   I thought I might share with you an email sent to to Ms. Wait-Huber who was one of the first to circulate an email that contained many inaccuracies.  As an officer of the PTSA, I found the email both inflammatory and irresponsible.  The protection of our children is a priority for the council and to assert otherwise is simply poor judgment.   Below is the email response from our police department with the facts.  I hope you find it informative.

Don Hansen Councilmember City of Huntington Beach

The letter below is from a HBPD Officer regarding the same letter from HBHS.

Ms. Wait-Huber –

I am a captain with the Huntington Beach Police Department. I would like to respond to your email to clarify some of your statements.

With regards to the skate park at Huntington Beach High School, there were a total of 15 police calls for service in all of 2007 and only three in 2008 (the park closed after August of 2008). These calls include investigation of stolen property, disturbances, cooking food at the park, object thrown at a passing vehicle on Main Street, misdemeanor assaults, petty thefts, homeless man sleeping at park at midnight, two illegal drugs calls (not confirmed), vandalism, and drunk in public. There were no serious injuries from any of these incidents and the calls regarding stolen property and drugs were not confirmed when the officers arrived.

With regards to the skate park at Murdy Park (Golden West and Warner area), there were only 13 calls for service in 2007, 25 in 2008 and only six calls for police service in all of 2009. In 2009, there were 243 calls for the rest of the park (recreation center, athletic fields, and BBQ areas) for the same time period. These calls include misdemeanor assault, runaway juvenile, robbery of a skateboard, juveniles fighting, possible intoxicated homeless man, rope hung from a nearby tree that was a possible hazard, juveniles smoking cigarettes, and 11-year old boy injured when falling from his skateboard.

If there has been additional incidents discovered by the School staff they have not been reported to the Police Department. Considering the positive relationship the Police Department enjoys with the schools in the City, I believe the number of possible unreported incidents is fairly low.

The number of calls for service for these locations is considerably low compared to other areas of the city where juveniles frequent. If there have been other public safety incidents at these locations they were not reported to the Police Department.  I do not believe either of the skate parks have been the source “tremendous” problems as you have stated. I understand one other citizen recently reported that a death occurred at the High School skate park a number of years ago. This is not true.

The Police Department has not taken a “hands-off approach to the park” as you wrote. All calls for service are responded to as quickly as possible and a thorough investigation is completed as is appropriate for each incident. Also, officers routinely patrol the areas of each park and take enforcement action as deemed necessary.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like to discuss this further.

Thank you,

Chuck Thomas

Huntington Beach Police Department

(714) 536-5910

“Oh sure we love skateboarding,  just not in our city…”

Here is a letter that ended up in my email box a few days ago.  It is a letter from the Huntington Beach High School PTSA regarding the new skatepark in Huntington Beach.

The part that I don’t get is why HBHS initially said they would only donate $75,000 to the park if it was next to the high school (Worthy Park) and now for some reason they don’t want the skatepark anywhere near the school?  Here is the original letter the school is sending out…. you be the judge.

Dear HBHS Community,

Many of you may be unaware that the city is planning to relocate the skate park formerly next to the stadium to Worthy Park off of 17th Street. I just learned that the city has in fact already approved the relocation. What many of you may also not know is that the skate park was a source of tremendous problems for our high school at its previous location. The skate park was completely unsupervised and served as a gathering place not only for legitimate skateboarders but also for those both from within and outside our community looking for a place to engage in much less positive behaviour. The school experienced daily issues with the park including loud use of profanity, underage smoking, drinking, drug use, drug sales, public urination and defication. Young adults were often there providing drugs and alcohol to our students as well as younger children who gathered there to skate board. On several occasions our staff had to send students to the hospital who were found consuming alcohol at the park. After hours, many of the skateboarders would move from the skate park onto our campus causing significant damage to our school both with skateboards and with spray cans. All of these activities occurred not only after hours but often while class was in session. At its new location, the activities will occur within sight of our students and the after hours damage will be done to a school that has just undergone 5 years of taxpayer-funded renovations.

Other communities have skate parks as well but they also provide supervision to ensure the safety of those using the park. The City of Huntington Beach has no plans to provide any supervision and the HB Police Dept has always had a hands-off approach to the park. In fact, the city is unfairly relying on our high school staff to supervise a city facility.

At our meeting on Jan. 13th, the HBHS PTSA voted to oppose the location of the skate park near any of the schools in our district. I urge you to contact the city council as soon as possible and let them know that we must put our children’s safety and well-being first. Contact information is listed below.

Sincerely,
Laura Mercs
President, HBHS PTSA

City Council – Cathy Green, Jill Hardy, Keith Bohr, Joe Carchio, Gil Coerper, Devin Dwyer, Don Hansen
Facilities Manager – Dave Dominiguez

***Please voice your opinion and  show your support for the skate community by sending a “respectful” email to one of Huntington Beach’s city council members.

cgreen@surfcity-hb.org
jhardy@surfcity-hb.org
kbohr@surfcity-hb.org
jcarchio@surfcity-hb.org
GCoerper@surfcity-hb.org
Devin.Dwyer@surfcity-hb.org
dhansen@surfcity-hb.org
ddominguez@surfcity-hb.org

-We can’t let this be our only skatepark

Yes its friday and yes it is raining, but that shouldn’t stop you from shralping .  Every deck in the store and on the website today is 10% off!!

Check this one out….LEt iT RAiN

Thanks to Brandon for the clip. Click here to check out Brandon’s site.

Yes, tomorrow is Friday and that means alot of things, but most importantly it means that every deck at the shop is 10% off.   What better way to start off the weekend than a brand new deck.  For Those About to Rip, We Salute You!

You might even catch Grosso in here tomorrow working behind the counter…

Friday On My Mind

—shop dog wanted

We just got a bunch of NEW orders in today!! Come down and check them out our go to our ONLINE STORE.

New Bones Wheels… no flatspots + super fast=ripping

New Decks,  remember…. every friday= 10% off on any deck

Re-stocked on Indys

come out for good cause!!!  Its Going to be an amazing night! All proceeds will go to help out Haiti

over $150 worth of prizes going to be raffled off from the coolest shops around town…Jokers Skate Shop, Vinyl Solution, Portfolio Coffeehouse, Art Theater, MVPS, Meow, and many more

Become a Jokers Skate Shop Fan on our Facebook Fan Page for daily updates on New Products, Team Photos, Shop Events, and info on Skateshop Free Giveaways!

Jake Back Smith over the shallow end deathbox @ Burger’s

Check out more photos at RUSPIX