A few months ago, I sat with 225 Baton Rouge Magazine and spent some time talking about the state of skateboarding in Baton Rouge versus the one in Hammond. BREC, the Recreation & Park Commission for the parish of East Baton Rouge, is the worst thing that could have possibly happened to the city (in my opinion), and I was able to tell the reporter just that.
See, a number of years ago, BREC spent somewhere in the area of $23,000 purchasing ARC ramps… some of the worst ramps ever made unless you’re a brand new skater… and you’re three years old. The problem isn’t so much that BREC wasted thousands of dollars on a shoddy product, the real problem is that more street skaters get prosecuted (persecuted, even) for skateboarding in a city when there’s a park in town… “now ya’ll don’t be skating here in downtown! We dun built ya’ll a park, now ‘yer gonna use it whether you like it or not!!!” The fact is, years after the park in BR was installed (versus being built), crackdowns on skaters in the city escalated (at least from the stories I heard while I lived in BR). On top of that, Baton Rouge, the capital city… home of a much larger skateboarding population than we have, needs a skatepark built for a capital city.

You get the idea. Anyway, I basically spoke my mind, and was stoked to see that in the article (link below), Mayor Mayson Foster, Tony Licciardi, Joey keener, and the City of Hammond got all the props they deserved. More props go to Gary Patureau (the head of the Skatepark Association of Baton Rouge, he’s pictured in the article wearing a sharp tie), and big Reno (owner of Urban Nine and a close, personal friend of many of us here). I think everyone did a great job at clarifying the problems with BREC, and if I come across as bitter in the article, it’s because I was. Lucky for me though… I live in the best skate city in Louisiana.

Click Here to Read the Article