Appleton, WI Public Conduct: Skateboarding Rules (2026)

Appleton Municipal Code § 19-164 prohibits operating, riding or propelling a skateboard, inline skates or roller skates on two categories of public property. The first is a defined downtown zone: the area bounded by Franklin Street on the north, Lawrence Street on the south (including any ramps leading down into Jones Park), Richmond Street on the west and Drew Street on the east. The second is broader: all City-owned parking ramps and parking lots, citywide, not just downtown. The ban sits in Article V of Chapter 19, alongside the City's bicycle and electric scooter rules, and § 19-163 makes it unlawful for any person to fail to perform or to perform an act the article forbids, and separately makes clear that a parent or guardian may not authorize or knowingly permit a child or ward to violate any provision of the article, including the skateboarding restriction.

Section 19-162 sets the penalty for the article as a whole: a fine of not more than five dollars, plus removal of the rider's bicycle registration tag for up to thirty days where one exists. An earlier version of the code also barred skateboarding on certain pedestrian bridges, but Ordinance 75-94 repealed that specific provision in 1994, leaving the downtown zone and parking-facility ban as the operative restrictions today.