The only cul-de-sac in L.A. with a law banning skateboarding

The cul-de-sac ends at the top of a hill with a sweeping view of the San Fernando Valley. 56.15.2 of the city’s municipal code — “No person shall ride a skateboard on Hermano Drive” — reflect the contentiousness that occasionally flares up over its more dangerous manifestations. *** When L.A. Councilman Bob Blumenfield started getting calls in 2015 from some Hermano Drive homeowners about groups of teens repeatedly slaloming past, he said, he “went over there and was like, ‘Damn, that does look like a fun run.’” A self-described “skate rat” in his youth, Blumenfield nevertheless introduced the ordinance to bar skateboarding on the asphalt hill, labeling it an “extremely dangerous activity.” The municipal code, he noted, allows for ordinances restricting skateboarding in public places where skaters have exhibited “a willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property.” Bob Blumenfield at a Sept. 26 Los Angeles City Council meeting. Last summer, the San Francisco Police Department arrested 32 adults and cited 81 minors during a clash with participants and spectators at an annual skateboarding event dubbed the “Dolores Hill Bomb.” The unsanctioned event draws hundreds of people to the sheer hills near the city’s Mission Dolores Park — where the most daring of them careen down the public roadways at high speed, resulting in injuries and one death in past years. Born in 1977, Cory’s mom, Brenda Masson, grew up in the ‘90s skating in the Valley and “watching our boyfriends get hit in the head with skateboards by security guards.” She wasn’t familiar with Hermano Drive, but she described the fact that skateboarding was specifically banned there as “the oddest thing I’ve ever heard.” Today, she spends long days at the skate park watching her son and chatting with other parents.