Date and time set for public hearing on Charleston’s new skateboard regulations

The schedule for the City of Charleston’s public hearing on its proposed new package of skateboarding regulations downtown has been set.

The hearing will be 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 26 at City Hall, run by the city’s Committee on Traffic and Transportation.

No registration ahead of time is required.

City Council is considering adopting a new set of regulations under a six-month pilot proposal that would greatly expand where skateboarding is allowed downtown, but also requires boarders to obey all the rules of the road.

Among those regulations are stopping at stop signals, no use of cell phones while riding and no bare feet.

Also, the area where skateboarding is allowed on the peninsula would be greatly expanded and better defined, although boarding would be prohibited outright on most of the city’s major thoroughfares, including highly traveled King, Meeting, Broad, East Bay and Calhoun streets.

Riders would be expected to pick up their boards and walk in prohibited areas.

Anyone caught violating any of the 15 or so new regulations would face a minimum fine of $50.

For College of Charleston students, most of the streets in that area and surrounding neighborhoods would be freed up for regulated boarding to occur.

The move comes as officials looked for ways to make the practice safer in busy streets of the city.

The hope is to have the new rules in place before the downtown colleges finish for the summer.