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→Skateboards and the public
Skateboarding is usually regulated by local ordinances; "the laws" governing skateboarding vary from town to town.
Skateboarding is usually regulated by local ordinances; "the laws" governing skateboarding vary from town to town.
Unfortunately some believe it is an unlawful thing and therefore is despised by so many. However, it is quite the opposite being one of the most common sport/art practiced today.
Unfortunately some believed it is an unlawful thing and therefore was despised by so many. However, it is quite the opposite being one of the most common sport/art practiced today.
The first mention of the word "skateboard" in ''The New York Times'' is a 1965 story, "Montclair Official Plans an Ordinance to Ban Skateboards"<ref>"Montclair Official Plans an Ordinance to Ban Skateboards", The New York Times, April 29, 1965, p. 37</ref> calling it "the latest juvenile fad on wheels" and quoting an official as saying "These devices are most dangerous... because of their speed on inclines and the difficulty in controlling them."
The first mention of the word "skateboard" in ''The New York Times'' is a 1965 story, "Montclair Official Plans an Ordinance to Ban Skateboards"<ref>"Montclair Official Plans an Ordinance to Ban Skateboards", The New York Times, April 29, 1965, p. 37</ref> calling it "the latest juvenile fad on wheels" and quoting an official as saying "These devices are most dangerous... because of their speed on inclines and the difficulty in controlling them."
The early skateboard was referred to as a "banana board" for it's shape and bright, yellow plastic deck. Stacy Peralta was a pioneer of skateboarding in the Cailfornia Bay area in the 70's. He later teamed up with George Powell to create Powell-Peralta, the legendary skateboarding monolith that cultivated early skating powerhouses such as Mike McGill, inventor of the McTwist, and Tony Hawk, who ultimately propelled skateboarding to the commercial success it eventually became.
Through touring and local "demos," professional skateboarders cultivated a massive following and utlized varying media, including magazines such as Thrasher and Transworld, in addition to SK8 TV (which aired for a brief time in the early 1990s on the cable channel Nickelodeon) and the 1987 cult classic film "Gleaming the Cube," starring christian Slater as a rebellious teen, who uses skateboarding as the vehicle to change himself, while locating his brother's murderer.
Mike McGill is Mr. Slater's stunt double and Tony Hawk, among several other skaters, makes a cameo appearance as a Pizza Hut truck driver.
Upon the first wave of commercialism to hit skateboarding, the introduction of public skateparks became increasingly common. With the new terrain available to a wider populous of skateboarding youth, more and more amateur skateboarders entered the scene and challenged the monopoly of skateboarding companies such as Powell Peralta, World Industries (headed by Skateboarding mogul Steve Rocco) H-Street, Santa Cruz and Vision.
From these larger companies sprang subsidiaries and off-shoots such as Blind (a subtle jab at Vision) headed by Mark Gonzalez and Jason Lee as well as Plan B. In 1992, these two companies arguably changed the face of skateboarding forever with the release of two skate videos entitled "Video Days" and "The Questionable Video". These videos featured professional skateboarders defying the very laws of physics and popularized the use of music other than punk, hard-core and heavy metal. Skateboarding then became what the iconoclastic founders feared the most "trendy".
As skateboarding remains no exception to the rules of free market economics, the 1990s saw hundreds of companies enter the trend and subsequently die out.
Currently, skateboarding has entered the mainstream of youth pop culture with video games and televised commercials featuring the art. Public skateparks have sprung up, especially in the North East, where it was never dreamed they would. Skateparks are generally comprised of several concrete "mini-ramps," as opposed to "vert ramps" (or those ramps, which contain a vertical section beneath the coping).
==Safety==
==Safety==