Springfield, OH Public Conduct: Skateboarding Rules (2026)

Section 373.14 of the Springfield Codified Ordinances, adopted by Ordinance No. 88-393 on June 28, 1988, prohibits riding a skateboard on any sidewalk, street, alley, or public ground inside the City's Central Business District. Subsection (b) defines that district by metes and bounds: starting at the intersection of the west right-of-way line of South Fountain Avenue and the north right-of-way line of East Main Street, the boundary runs east along East Main Street to South Limestone Street, south along South Limestone Street to East Washington Street, west along East Washington Street back to South Fountain Avenue, then north along South Fountain Avenue to the point of beginning, a rectangle covering Springfield's downtown core near the Heritage Center and Mother Stewart's.

Because the ban is written into Chapter 373, Bicycles, it sits alongside the City's bicycle and electric-bicycle riding rules rather than in a stand-alone skateboard chapter, and Chapter 373's general penalty clause, Section 373.99, which states that whoever violates any provision of the chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor of the fourth degree, covers this skateboard ban the same way it covers the chapter's bicycle sections. The Springfield Police Division enforces it. Skateboarding anywhere outside that mapped downtown perimeter, including on residential sidewalks and streets, is not reached by Section 373.14, so the ordinance targets Springfield's downtown core rather than imposing a citywide prohibition.