Sharon Larios was born and raised in Linda Vista and said going to Skateworld San Diego was part of her childhood.
"It's a huge part of my identity and who I am, so I got involved because of the fact that it's Skateworld and just what Skateworld represents to our community," she said.
Recently, Larios and other skating enthusiasts found out that their neighborhood roller rink was in jeopardy of closing its doors. The city of San Diego owns the property that Skateworld is on and is now required by state law to dispose of former redevelopment property assets like the Skateworld property.
"This property was a city asset, part of the old redevelopment agency, Gov. Brown a while ago said that all the properties that were in the redevelopment agencies need to be liquidated and sold off to the highest available ... entities that are involved," said Scott Sherman, District 7 City Council member.
The city opened up a bidding process last year. Skateworld and other companies bid on the land, but ultimately the bid went to a different company. City Council is set to vote on the sale in mid April.
Larios is doing everything she can to try to save the rink and started an online petition that now has more than 16,000 signatures.
"It's something that's currently happening to us and could happen in your own neighborhood. If we don't help preserve the essence of who we are, who this community is, we're not going to have anything left," she said.
Skateworld's management says they are looking into the idea of moving to a different location, but they can't imagine not being in Linda Vista.
"It's really hard to do a rink, to have that much unobstructed space, plus it's just a landmark," said Cinthia Mashburn, a manager at Skateworld.
Larios and others are planning rallies in the coming weeks to help spread awareness in the neighborhood and get residents to petition city council to stop the sale.
For more information on the effort to save Skateworld, click here.
