busted in a Grand Junction, CO parking garage!

[skategeezer]

oh no!

Multiple use garage


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Eighteen-year-old Gabe Russotto, left, and 17-year-old Chris Gutierrez, right, hopped on their long boards in the Rood Ave. parking garage Thursday evening. The garage sees the occasional group of teen boarders at night, after most cars have cleared out of the garage.
Emily Anderson | Free Press

WEB EXTRAS
Parking garage boarders



By Emily Anderson
Grand Junction, CO Colorado
April 18, 2008

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GRAND JUNCTION — Past 8 p.m. on any given night, the Rood Ave. parking garage empties out, lights up and welcomes a new type of transportation.

Skateboarders, long boarders and a few bike and scooter enthusiasts discovered the garage could provide four and a half floors of play room when the cars clear out weeks after it opened in November. Most of the top floors are leased and public parking on the main floor is free at night, but boarders mostly have the garage to themselves after dark, said long boarder Chris Gutierrez, a 17-year-old junior at Fruita Monument High School.

“It’s good at night — it’s not too hot, it’s not too cold and there’s not many cars,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said boarders usually take the garage’s elevator to the fourth floor, walk to the top of the parking garage and ride to the main floor. With more cars, they’d glide down the middle. But since the garage is usually empty at night, said Gutierrez, boarders have room to do tricks, zig-zag and slide around corners with gloved wrists scraping the cement. Gutierrez said he’s never seen anyone plow into a car — they usually jump off their board or crash into a wall first — “but I’m sure someone has.”

On one occasion, a Grand Junction police officer arrived just as Gutierrez was zipping down to the main level of the garage. The officer said there was a noise complaint for loud music. Gutierrez and his friends turned off their music and, after the cop left, got back on their boards.

Grand Junction Police Officer Cory Tomps said he’s been called to the parking garage for complaints of skateboarding, but the calls are few and there’s nothing illegal about boarding in the garage. If the city posted “no skateboarding” signs in the garage, the boarders could possibly get fined.

The garage is patrolled regularly, but the only illegal thing Tomps has spotted was some graffiti early after the garage opened, and that’s been cleaned up.

“I haven’t heard about anything major going on in there,” Tomps said.

Most of people Gutierrez sees in the garage are in high schools, don’t skate in groups larger than a dozen people, and mostly hail from Fruita, although he knows a few kids from Central High go there. His friend Gabe Russotto, an 18-year-old Fruita Monument senior, said the parking garage is more appealing than most hills because he can take the elevator to the top.

That won’t last for long though, said Jodi Romero, financial operations manager for the city of Grand Junction. Following issues with keeping the elevator clean and a pop spill that was temporarily mistaken for urine, the city officials have decided to give people that lease spaces above the main floor of the garage key cards to access the elevator. The key cards will also provide exclusive access to a second elevator that will go in sometime this year.

“It hasn’t happened a lot, but it doesn’t take much for people to say, wait a minute, that’s not pleasant,” Romero said of messes in the elevator. She did not blame any cleanliness issues on teens using the garage at night.

Russotto also said long boarding in the garage is less dangerous than trying to board on a busy street. And it can make for happy neighbors in quiet subdivisions.

“In most residential areas people don’t want hooligan skateboarders,” Russotto said.

Check www.gjfreepress.com for video of Gutierrez and Russotto skating in the garage.

Reach Emily Anderson at eanderson@gjfreepress.com.

[onthespoke]

Bravo for cool people.

[Steez Police]

Those damn hooligan skateboarders!

The security guards around here try to take our pictures... (?)

There is not a "no skating" sign however, so I'm not sure what that's all about. Maybe they're just into photography?