My parents used to live in Jena, Louisiana (they now live right next to it in an even smaller town called Olla). Jena, as small and remote as it is, actually has a pretty good (if not new and growing) little skate scence… which brings me to the photo below… signs like this are how you can tell if your skate scene is healthy or not:

1. Ignorant city council bans skateboarding from a strip of pavement in a public park? Check.
2. Same ignorant city council makes skateboarding illegal in all other public areas? Check.
3. City council, while creating idiotic and moronic rules, is outnumbered by families in audience that support skateboarding? Check.

I’ll say this as gently and as subtly as I can…
The mayor and city council of Jena Louisiana are retarded, and they have a collective IQ less than that of an empty jar of mayonnaise.

When I used to visit my parents here, I’d often skate in one of two huge public tennis courts located behind the house they lived in. Now, skating in those tennis courts is outlawed. The sad thing is, for the kids in Jena, there’s no legal place to skate anywhere around them. It’s funny (in a terribly sad sort of way) that the city would prohibit using public property in a way that the public obviously wants to use it. Jena’s concerns lie soley in its senior citizens (who recently aquired the use of Jena’s old town hall as a new senior citizen’s community center). It’s especially striking because the mayor and council there know damned well that there’s no reason for skateboarding to be outlawed on public property.

In 2001, (then) Governor Mike Foster signed in Act 1199,  which removes liability from government bodies for possible injuries that skateboarders, bikers and rollerbladers may recieve while taking part in their activity of choice. The city of Jena is well aware of this, thanks to the work done by a skate mom named Phyllis Alexander (mother of my friends Will, and my late friend Sid). Even while trying to educate the city council, they still went out of their way to pass ordinances to make the act of skateboarding illegal.

Most of you reading this probably won’t ever need to visit Jena for any reason, and with this I hope to ensure that you actively avoid the place should the opportunity arise.