Venice Skaters Triumph Over Corporate Poseurs ~ Venice Beach

After spending more than 15 years fighting for a place to show off their kickflips and ollies, a group of Venice activists weren’t about to sit back and let commercial promoters skate off with their work.

So Warner Bros. Consumer Products and ASA Entertainment won’t be inaugurating the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks’ new $2.5-million public skateboard park at Venice Beach after all.

The two companies last month announced that their Labor Day “Supergirl Jam” would be the premier event at the new three-basin skateboard complex next to the Venice boardwalk near Windward Avenue. The event would be “in conjunction with the opening of Venice’s amazing new beachside skate park,” Warner Bros. and ASA Entertainment bragged in a July 24 announcement.

Members of the Venice Skateboard Assn. reacted as if they’d been smacked with a concrete face-plant. “Did these people think we just fell off our skateboards yesterday?” fumed Ger-I Lewis, an association leader who helped the city plan and then oversee construction of the new park.

Another longtime Venice skater, Anthony Converse, said the “Supergirl Jam” announcement “has the local community and greater skateboard community in a near insurrection level of outrage and feeling of betrayal.”