July 8th 2014: Skate

It's been a wet week, but if you were on your toes, then you may have even paddled out for the four-hour window of offshore and sunny conditions at St Clair on Friday. Definitely feels like winter when the lefts open up like these ones above.

While I was down there at St Clair Beach I noticed a little frowny face down by the pool. It took me a few minutes to realise that it was a sign showing a skateboard with a red line through it that someone had augmented with the frowny face. I was quite surprised to learn that skateboarding was banned along the esplanade at St Clair Beach.

Sure, packs of skaters doing kickflips through a crowded sidewalk would be a bad scene, but I have never seen that down there. I have seen kids, dads, mums and teenagers riding their skateboards and skates to check the surf. I never realised that what they were doing was illegal. Skateboarding is a big part of surf culture and it has been a key part of the surf culture and heritage of St Clair Beach – pop in and check out Pat O'Neill's images of skateboarders on the walls of the Esplanade Restaurant and you'll see what I mean.

So you can imagine how puzzled I was when I discovered that the Dunedin City Council is in the final throes of introducing an adjustment to this bylaw that will allow it to seize the boards from under 14-year-olds and force them to pay a $50 fee to have them released. Essentially this gives the authority the ability to step around the law that prevented them from fining under 14-year-olds. Most councils are busy finding ways to engage youth – even building skating facilities at local beaches.

Want to speak up for skating at St Clair Beach? Click here.

We waved goodbye to ultra-endurance athlete Glenn Sutton yesterday. He's off to Darwin for a few weeks before heading to Lone Pine on July 20 to run 217km in 40°C heat through Californian deserts as part of the 2014 edition of Badwater 135. He told us he "felt ready" for what he anticipated would be a 30-hour ordeal. Follow his progress here.

See you at the beach ... Derek