Bulldozer covers Venice Beach skate park with sand to deter gatherings
Raw video: Local authorities fill the Venice Beach skate park with sand to deter people from gathering amid social distancing restrictions.
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California officials who closed a popular skate park and filled it with 37 tons of sand in hopes of keeping residents away during the coronavirus outbreak have inadvertently turned the recreational site into a dirt biker’s paradise.
A video posted on Instagram this week shows riders catching air at Ralph’s Skate Court in San Clemente despite the city’s effort to enforce social distancing.
“The fact the city put the sand in there to try to social distance everyone – I think it’s a big joke,” Connor Ericsson, who posted the video, told KUSI News. “These kids are cooped up inside their houses, they just want to go to the skate park and have some fun.”
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Another video on his account shows locals shoveling up the sand and placing it into buckets.
“As soon as the skaters showed up, we got a broom and a shovel and we helped them sweep that thing out, get the sand out there so they could do a little social shredding themselves,” Ericsson added.
The city of San Clemente first closed all parks and put up “no trespassing” signs on April 1 to contain the spread of the virus. The sand was added last week after officials “saw people continue to skate the park," Samantha Wylie, the city’s parks manager, told the San Clemente Times.
"It appeared the closure was not being abided by,” she added.
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A bulldozer was filmed adding sand to an iconic skate park in Venice Beach this week as well.
San Clemente, as of Tuesday, has 43 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to Patch, while the state of California has 35,845 overall.
Fox News’ Robert Gearty contributed to this report.
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