'But it's not a skateboard'

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Liam Richards

Bradley Charles, 21, was killing time one day last summer near the Saskatchewan River in downtown Saskatoon, riding his longboard up and down a gentle hill on a concrete path, when two police officers wrote him a $15 ticket for skateboarding in a prohibited zone. “But this isn’t a skateboard,” he protested. “It’s a longboard.” Unlike the similar-shaped skateboard that’s mainly used for airborne tricks, a longboard looks like a surfboard on wheels, stretching 90 to 150 cm, making it unable to ever leave the ground. They ticketed him anyway, citing a bylaw meant to keep skateboarders from scuffing up city property while doing tricks.

Now Charles, who says the longboard was his only mode of transportation at the time, is lobbying his local government to exclude the metre-long cousin of the skateboard from existing skateboard bylaws. He says he’d even support a law that requires helmets and speed limits, as long as he’s allowed to ride. But while the city asked for a staff report looking into legalizing longboards two years ago, no report has yet come forward, and in August, the council decided to extend the skateboard ban to an additional area of downtown.

Cities from Fredericton, N.B., to White Rock, B.C., are facing a growing number of petitions from longboarders like Charles, who argue that their boards are an eco-friendly mode of transportation and safer than regular skateboards: their length and bigger wheels make them more stable, and the greater distance between the front and back wheels means it’s impossible for the board to leave the ground.

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Milk skirmishes

By Kate Lunau - Monday, November 30, 2009 at 9:35 AM - 18 Comments

Sugary junk food or nutrition-packed snack? That question’s on a lot of minds as chocolate milk gets an image makeover: it’s now being promoted by the American dairy industry as a healthy choice for kids. In U.S. schools, flavoured milks (like chocolate or strawberry) account for about 70 per cent of all the milk kids drink. So, when concerns about obesity prompted some to take them off cafeteria menus, the industry was quick to respond: it rolled out a campaign, called “Raise your hand for chocolate milk,” including a petition, a Twitter feed, and slick ads with actress Rebecca Romijn. Like plain milk, flavoured milk offers nine essential nutrients, the campaign notes, “plus the taste-appeal kids go for.” While the chocolate kind has more sugar (roughly the same as a glass of orange juice), the campaign calls this an “acceptable trade-off,” noting that over half of all teens aren’t getting enough calcium, risking their bone health down the road. Taking flavoured milks out of schools could do more harm than good, the argument goes, encouraging kids to choose less nutritious drinks like soda.

In Canada, the debate is playing out in P.E.I., where parents are pushing for chocolate milk to be subsidized in school cafeterias, just as white milk is. Jennifer Taylor, an expert in childhood nutrition at the University of P.E.I., says only half of all kids there are drinking enough milk. Taylor, who heads the province’s Healthy Eating Alliance, supports subsidizing chocolate milk, even though some people react “like we’re recommending rum to children.” (In New Brunswick, both chocolate and plain milk are subsidized. P.E.I. has no plans to introduce a similar program for now, because the current budget won’t allow it.) Continue…