Do skaters have an undeserved reputation? As Sarah O’Connor reports, the Dandy Skate Family just wants a safe place to practise.If you saw someone riding a unicycle along Lonsdale Street in Dandenong, you would probably be intrigued and entertained. You might even stop what you’re doing to take some photos. But swap that unicycle for a skateboard. Would your reaction change?
Members of the Dandy Skate Family (DSF), a local group of skateboarders, feel they’re constantly fighting a misconception within the community that they are all thugs and vandals.
Some shop owners in the Dandenong CBD have complained about skaters intimidating people by skating outside their stores, saying they scare customers away. Business owners have called on Greater Dandenong Council to install ‘no skateboarding’ signs in Lonsdale Street.
‘‘Customers are afraid to come here,’’ Chelsea Jewellery owner Robert Sarian says. ‘‘Customers have even complained to the council about it.’’
But DSF members say they are just a group of friends who all share a common interest, which does not include deliberately intimidating people.
‘‘We’re regular people who like skateboarding,’’ says Ben Costelloe, who is then quickly corrected by his fellow skaters. They don’t like skateboarding, they love it. They spend every spare moment at Dandenong’s skate park, learning new tricks and perfecting old ones.
‘‘We are just a family, basically,’’ Rob Pellett explains. ‘‘Skating is like my second girlfiend.’’
The group understands there are cases where their behaviour might intimidate some people, but they say it’s never deliberate and is often due to a lack of understanding. When they skate in Lonsdale Street, for example, it’s because it has different types of ledges they can hit and it’s a change from what they’re used to at the skate park. It’s not because they want to scare people or show off.
‘‘We’ll stop and let them through because it’s a public walkway,” Pellett said. “We’re not disrespecting people, we’re just normal people with a hobby.’’
They say Greater Dandenong’s only skate park, in Hemmings Park on the Princes Highway, isn’t ideal either.
Sometimes skaters are forced to go elsewhere because of ‘‘little things’’ ruining their experience, such as gravel on the ramps or improperly supervised children running into the skating area. The odd bit of gravel may not seem like much to the uninitiated, but hitting it at high speed can quite easily turn a trick into a heavy crash.
Micah Garfinkel, who wrote a letter to the Weekly after reading about shop owners’ complaints, says the skate park is one of the best in Victoria but could still be greatly improved. He says it being in a family park causes problems on its own.
‘‘There needs to be more awareness with parents and their kids. We had a little kid running around [the skate ramps] in their diapers the other day. It’s a really dangerous place and people don’t understand.’’
But it’s not just young children who cause safety problems at the skate park — Costelloe said there were often groups of people drinking in Hemmings Park, sometimes during the day as well as at night.
‘‘Once it hits night-time it’s not safe,’’ he said. ‘‘We get harassed by people in the area; there have been a couple of instances where they’ve even come to fight us. We want to feel safe skating. We’re just there to skate.’’
Police often drive past the skate park, Pellett says, but it’s not enough. ‘‘We need to have people manning it and looking after the place.’’
Noble Park used to have its own skate park but it was demolished as works began on the ‘more than a pool’ redevelopment. The City of Greater Dandenong is now considering the construction of a skate park as part of the master plan for Ross Reserve in Noble Park.
But what would local skaters like to see? Costelloe says it is impossible to create the perfect skate park because every skateboarder has different preferences, but an indoor venue would be ‘‘ridiculously good’’.
He says that would mean they could feel safe while skating, especially at night, and would solve the problem of young children causing dangerous situations.
In the meantime, he says, people can find out for themselves that most of Dandenong’s skateboarders are harmless. He said members of DSF would be happy to answer any questions from passers-by, or show them the tricks they’re trying to master.
‘‘Talk to us — we’re just people.”
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