Santa Cruz County, CA Public Conduct: Skateboarding Rules (2026)

Chapter 8.23 SCCC, adopted by Ordinance 4450 in 1997, regulates skateboards, roller skates, roller blades, coasters, and similar devices in the unincorporated county. Section 8.23.020 bans riding these devices on tennis courts on public property, any active or completed construction project on public or private land, and throughout Soquel Village Zone A as defined by SCCC § 9.42.030, including its streets and sidewalks. It also bans riding on walls, steps, driveways, or parking lots on public property, and on the parking lots, driveways, walls, steps, railings, and sidewalks of any shopping center, business, or nonprofit establishment, but only where the property has been posted with a sign reading 'Skating and Skateboarding Prohibited (Santa Cruz County Code 8.23.020).' Section 8.23.030 sets sign specifications: no larger than one foot by one foot, spaced roughly every 30 to 60 feet around the periphery and at entrances.

Where riding is not prohibited, Section 8.23.040 applies California Vehicle Code Section 21967 rules of the road, requiring riders to stop at stop signs and red signals, yield at yield signs and crosswalks, not impede traffic, yield to approaching vehicles when entering a roadway, avoid bicycle lanes, and never be towed by a vehicle or an unsafely fast bicycle. Section 8.23.050 requires riders on sidewalks to yield to pedestrians. Any violation of the chapter is an infraction under SCCC § 1.12.040, and Section 8.23.060 makes property owners responsible for posting the required signs, for being willing to sign citations against violators, and for assisting in prosecuting those citations.