Last Updated on April 20, 2020
Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, many local governments are taking increasingly extreme steps to enforce social distancing measures, including filling skate parks with sand to dissuade use.
It’s not the first time the government has tried to crack down on skater culture, and like most past efforts to force skaters to conform to the status quo, it seems to be backfiring massively.
One video posted to Twitter shows a small group of skaters calmly and methodically shoveling away government sand into buckets.
In a video from a different day, one man drives a dirt bike around the new government-created dirt bike track.
The video compilation is captioned “LOOOL checkmate government dweebs.”
LOOOL checkmate government dweebs
Turning skatepark into a dirt bike track now pic.twitter.com/GYHi6cQvZo
— COLTYBRAH (@coltybrah) April 20, 2020
A video from the same day, which appears to be taken just a few hours later at most, shows the skaters getting back to business as the remaining sand is swept away.
Damn they’re actually shoveling it all out to make it skateable again pic.twitter.com/4LPw1Scy7Z
— COLTYBRAH (@coltybrah) April 20, 2020
The successful restoration of the skate park received widespread acclaim on social media from users who are frustrated with heavy-handed government lockdown measures.
Kings pic.twitter.com/tbou0O2JaL
— NRG_ILLUSTRATIONS (@eNRGy_DOODLES) April 20, 2020
— CrimsonElite18 (@CrimsonElite18) April 20, 2020
Meanwhile in the town of San Clemente, California, citizens took a different approach to flaunt the government’s sand-pit tactics.
“We’d like to thank @cityofsanclemente, who after over-reacting and irrationally shuttering all our beaches and trails, came to the brilliant conclusion to use tax payers dwindling dollars to at least create for us a new beach, up in the Ralph’s Skatepark. Now we have an all new beautiful beach to kick back and enjoy a few #Coronas on, while we wait out the #WuhanFlu. Then, when it’s over, we can use even more tax payer dollars to clean all the sand out and carry it back to #NorthBeach, where it’s so badly needed.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Ad5ZpHFOT/?utm_source=ig_embed
Public sentiment seems to be rapidly turning against government officials that are determined to place the entire country on indefinite lockdown amidst the coronavirus crisis.
