Kingsport, TN Public Conduct: Skateboarding Rules (2026)

The only Kingsport Code section that names skateboards is § 66-104, Wheeled vehicle use, in the parks chapter. Subsection (a) covers any person who rides upon or operates any bicycle, roller skates, skateboard, wagon, roller blades or similar devices having wheels, not including wheelchairs, in any park or recreation area. That person shall at all times yield the right-of-way to pedestrians or any person in a wheelchair. Subsection (b) requires the operator of any wheeled device to exercise at all times such reasonable prudence as the occasion and circumstances require, and it makes striking, colliding with or causing injury to another person when failing to exercise that prudence an offense. The section sets a standard of conduct, not a ban, and it prints no hours or park-by-park closures.

Outside the parks, the code regulates wheeled recreation by naming other devices. Section 90-50 bars any person from riding on or using roller skates, roller blades, in-line roller skates or similar devices on any sidewalk within fire district No. 1 or upon the sidewalk abutting any four-lane street or highway. Fire district No. 1 is the area designated in § 22-1. Section 98-84 keeps a person on roller skates, roller blades, in-line roller skates or similar devices, or riding a coaster or toy vehicle, off any roadway except while crossing a street on a crosswalk, where that person is granted all the rights and is subject to all the duties applicable to pedestrians. Neither section uses the word skateboard, and neither defines what a similar device is, so the text does not answer whether a skateboard falls inside them. Section 66-103 and the rest of the parks chapter are enforced within city-controlled parks, and Bays Mountain Park is one of them.