Published: March 20, 2008 06:11 pm            

Bridge City Skate Park shuts doors

By Tommy Mann, Jr. and Ashley Sanders

The Orange Leader



BRIDGE CITY — A Bridge City hot spot which attracted teens from across Southeast Texas for almost a decade is closing its doors.

Danny Broussard, owner of the Bridge City Skate Park, confirmed Wednesday that the music and skateboarding venue shut down March 14.

Broussard added he was saddened by the closure.

“It has been a solid two and a half years,” he wrote in a statement issued to The Leader Wednesday. “In that time, we have done everything from world renowned Christian acts like Pillar and Snowbread to standard rock acts like Grammy nominated Bowling for Soup.”

The decision to close the park came after a series of Bridge City residents addressed city councilmembers in recent weeks about their concerns and complaints against the night spot.

Some of the complaints alleged against the Skate Park include noise violations, allowing teenagers to hang out at the venue after closing hours and fights in the parking lot.

“We made every effort to keep the people who caused trouble off of our property,” Broussard said. “The biggest issues came from people ... not just kids ... who

never bought wristbands and never came inside.”

Broussard said the Bridge City Skate Park was a “fairly tight-knit community of kids.”

“They didn't fight with each other. They didn't abuse each other,” he said. “They were good kids ... good human beings.”

Broussard added that teenagers were never allowed to remain on the Skate Park premises after hours.

“Never were teenagers allowed to hang out on our property after we closed,” he said. “In fact, many, many times my wife and I brought kids home before curfew because their parents never showed up to pick them up. This is an outright lie from a person who did nothing but complain about the noise.”

And what about all of those noise complaints?

Broussard shared a venue noise level document from May 2007 with The Leader which showed the decibel level on and around the property during a live concert.

The document lists the decibel reading in a “perfectly quiet room” at 66. During the concert, the decibel level inside the venue, with the band playing, reached 105. At the edge of the property, where the most complaints originated from, the noise level never surpassed 69 decibels — only three decibels louder than those recorded in a quiet room.

Decibels did, however, reach 72 in the driveway of an apartment complex across the street from the Skate Park. According to data, a car driving in that same driveway registered 70 decibels.

“You will find the results amusing,” Broussard said of the venue noise level document. “You will see that traffic on 1442 is louder than the music playing at the Bridge City Skate Park.”

Danny and Stacy Broussard became the owners of the Bridge City Skate Park in October 2006 after more than a year of being minority partners in the facility with Lloyd Varnado, according to Orange Leader archives.

The establishment was one of the few locations in the region which allowed skateboarding as the primary form of recreation and catered to a predominantly under age 18 crowd.

In a recent interview with The Leader, Stacy Broussard said she and her husband Danny, “give the youth crowd something to do besides hanging out on the streets.” “There are signs everywhere which say no loitering or no skateboarding. We have a place for kids to come and hang out and be safe,” she said.

Danny Broussard added in that February interview with The Leader that he and his wife provide a valuable service in Bridge City.

“A thousand kids a month come through our door,” he said. “What would they be doing if we weren’t here, and where would be they be instead?”

Broussard said despite the negative image some have of the park, he has no regrets.

“I put my heart and soul into that business for two years and never made a profit,” Broussard said. “I Believed in what I was doing. We did fund raisers for the hungry, Christian concerts, PETA concerts, invisible children concerts, lock-ins ... you name it. I don't regret any of it.”

Danny Broussard has been involved in the area music scene for approximately 20 years as a musician and owner of a recording studio and partner in SET-X Records.

        

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