By Camas Frank ~

Ten years after it was first conceived, the City of San Luis Obispo’s Skate Park hosted three days of celebration for it’s first anniversary.

The skate park, located in  the large Santa Rosa Park, drew close to 1,000 people to its inaugural event in 2015, so the City spread out the festivities a bit this year, with food trucks, a DJ and games from Feb. 25-28.

A blood drive with United Blood Services of California was also part of the event Friday. For those wondering, they used needles, cookies and a behind the scenes screening for Zika virus, and did not go searching for scraped knees.

Safety regulations are strictly implemented at the park, including use of helmets, knee and elbow pads. However, the City did have some pushback in terms of safety and park conditions in the months after the park opened.

Some parents did not enforce the helmet rules on their own. Unsupervised teens and college students did not heed regulations, and some “undesirable elements” attempted to co-opt the park space before a more proactive authority presence stepped up.

Kevin Rucks, the City’s “Ambassador” to the skate park says he’s been at the park as much as possible, approaching seven days a week over the past year.

Rucks helped design the “capsule pool” in the park, as well as the rock pool, key elements of the park’s varied level of difficulty design. On Saturday he watched as a mix of age groups enjoyed his work, before taking a clipboard to judge the tricks competition.

Some parents at the park during the second day of festivities said the event marked their first visit to the skate park, with some driving from as far away as Santa Maria, before discovering an anniversary celebration in progress.

The children likewise were unaware that Rucks, as one of the adults making sure everything went smoothly, represented skaters in Nike commercials, and even ran his own park, a decade before they were born.

In case there are persistent concerns, a surveillance camera now keeps an eye on the park after closing and police are as always just a call away.