VIDEO: Closed California Skate Park Filled With Sand Attracts Dirt Bikers, Skateboarders During Coronavirus

California officials had ordered a popular skate park closed and filled with sand as a way to enforce social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The plan, however, appears to have backfired as videos and photos emerged online Wednesday of dirt bikers driving around the skate park. Posts of dirt bikers showed locals returning to the popular park in San Clemente, California, in violation of the park closures.

Returning skaters also appeared online as they dug out enough of the park so they could continue going out to skate.

The skate park in San Clemente was one of several parks in the city closed on April 1 as part of greater efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus. No trespassing signs were put up with the closures to encourage residents to stay at home, but the signs were reportedly ignored and people continued skating.

In response to the violations, city officials ordered the park filled with 37 tons of sand. The hope was that this would make it impossible for skaters to do anything and keep them from violating the closures. Officials said there was no cost in putting the sand in the park and it won’t cost anything to remove it.

Local skaters were disappointed with the decision.

“We’ve been coming here for fifteen years and now the city officials have taken the one thing we love to do, away,” a local told San Diego-based local news station KUSI. “This is our home and this is where we exercise. We’re able to social distance while also seeing our friends.”

The same tact was employed at Los Angeles’ Venice Beach skate park, where skaters continued skating at the park despite the closures.

“These kids are cooped up inside their houses, they just want to go to the skate park and have some fun,” motocross filmmaker Connor Ericsson told KUSI. “As soon as the skaters showed up, we got a broom and a shovel and we helped them sweep that thing out, get the sand out there so they could do a little social shredding themselves.”