Fun fact: A longboard is simply a skateboard, but longer. While skateboarders are usually caught doing ollies, kick flips, and crazy-spinny-madoddles, longboarders are more often found cruising around as a mode of transportation. Instead of the normal downward slope longboarders are used to, those in Menomonie are facing an uphill battle. The opponent is a Menomonie ordinance that classifies longboards as “play vehicles” and prohibits them from the majority of downtown and UW-Stout Campus roads and sidewalks. Eau Claire has similar laws banning skateboards and “similar equipment” from streets and sidewalks in business areas and parking lots. While this is said to be an old ordinance, it has only recently been enforced. Those who choose to defy this ordinance are faced with a hefty $162.70 fine. Many Stout students, including ones from the school’s Longboarding Club, believe  the law is outdated and it hinders people’s options in alternative transportation. And now they’ve banded together against it. Menomonie resident Ryan Wiederholt’s response to the law is simply, “breaking it” and other students plan to fight their tickets with the district attorney. Word has it that the Stout Student Association has plans in the works to advocate exempting longboards from the ordinance. Ignorance may be no excuse for the law, but maybe the law is no excuse for not longboarding.

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