When they put the motion for a city skatepark in front of the city council, there was a little progress with officials pointing at skating facilities in Brooks Park and then Curtis Park in Stafford County where the skateboarders were allowed to modify a section to skate in, but it still isn’t a real skate park.
“Whatever the rest of the world is doing, we’re doing the opposite,” said Mark Eyestone, owner of Magic Bullet Skateboards in Downtown Fredericksburg. He’s had a skate shop in Fredericksburg since 2002, and the discussion of a skatepark within the city has come up but went nowhere.
In downtown, when it comes to the notion of a skatepark or skateboarders seeing eye to eye with city planners, there’s no magic bullet.
Inside Mark Eyestone’s “Magic Bullet Skateboards,” a wall is covered with skateboard pictures of himself and other skateboarders around town, skating on the sidewalks or in the street. But when asked about a particular jump in one of the pictures, he wouldn’t divulge exactly where it was. It might cause bad blood in the city because the skateboarders have gotten chased off when trying to catch some air.
St. Clair Brooks Park is across the Rappahannock River in Falmouth. There is a skating area near the trees that consists of metal ramps, rails, and other skating amenities, but it’s not really a skate park. There’s no grandstand area where the skateboarders’ girlfriends can stare in awe, no snack bar with bathrooms, and no place for a first aid kit.
At Curtis Skate Park, also in Stafford County, there are wooden ramps, rails, and a box that was put together on an old tennis court. Both of these areas are made for skateboarding, but not a lot of effort was made to modernize them.
Eyestone thinks the skateboarders around town don’t get the attention they need. “There’s a lot more skaters around here than anyone thinks,” he said. They’ve all been in his little shop at one time or another and share the same “us against them” vibe.
In the city code, section 58-15 is titled “Use of roller skates, skateboards, and similar devices prohibited in certain areas.” It goes through a few particular streets “which play is prohibited” and then states that skateboards are not allowed on sidewalks, public parking lots, or leased parking lots. Violators will get a citation and a penalty of $5, the city document states.
Under the 2021 Parks and Recreation Plan, a skatepark is not listed under park classifications. On the “Facility Deficit and Surplus Analysis” list, it says one skatepark is in the inventory and one under current need. In a survey in the master plan, approved by City Council on May 24, 2022, skateparks had little support. On the “programmatic needs,” section, skatepark was third from the bottom of the 75-item list while “movies in the park,” was first and cooking classes was second.
Skateboarding is one of the elements that Eyestone can count on, though. When his shop was at 604 Caroline Street, he relied on phone calls and a fax machine to do business, which is antiquated these days. In fact, the skateboarders that come in are teenagers that grew up in the cell phone era with text messages and earbuds so the notion of a fax machine or a phone booth are not even on the radar.
The pandemic was beneficial for the Magic Bullet, said Eyestone. While everyone else was shutting down and isolating, skateboarding took off since the riders could be outside and not close to others. “I never made more [money] in a two-year span,” he said. Skateboarding is always a trend to some though. “There’s no downtime or uptime,” he said, “we’re still going to drive two hours to skate in an alley,” he added.
Mike Salmon is a freelance journalist and covers the Fredericksburg area for Potomac Local News.
