A new skateboarding ordinance could help reduce what police say is a nuisance to business owners, motorists and themselves.

“The kids use the streets like their skate parks,” said Police Chief Bill Baker, who asked the City Council to take up the new ordinance.

He said skateboarders are a “chronic source of complaints” for the department, and the purpose of the ordinance would be to “give officers the tools they need to deal with them.”

The complaints, Baker said, mostly come from motorists, who say that skateboarders dart out in front of their cars. Though the ordinance enables officers to fine skateboarders causing nuisances, he said, the police try to emphasize responsible parenting first, as a way to deal with the problem.

The ordinance prohibits skateboarders from riding on municipally owned property, interfering with pedestrians and attaching themselves to vehicles. It says they must obey traffic signs and, if in a public way, ride single file. Under the ordinance, police would be able to impound the skateboards of violators under 17 years old. Violators older than 17 could be fined up to $50 for a first offense and $100 for a second offense.

Councilors will hold public hearings on the skateboarding ordinance, as well as on a graffiti ordinance and a revision of the curfew ordinance – which hasn’t been updated since the 1940s – at 7 p.m. Monday in Room 114 at Westbrook High School.