SAN DIEGO (AP) - San Diego's financial woes have meant high times for some skateboarders.

The city can no longer afford to pay staff at its five skate parks, leaving young riders able to skate with beer and cigarettes and without fees or helmets.

Instead of supervision, the city has just posted a set of rules, which many skaters are gleefully breaking.

Twenty-five-year-old skateboarder John Wright says he rode his bike five miles to the Robb Field Skate Park in Ocean Beach when he heard about the free-for-all. Wright says "rules are just against the whole spirit of skateboarding," and "the whole idea of paying to skateboard is wrong."

City budget analyst Andrea Tevlin says she didn't like the idea of abandoning the skate parks, but said given budget shortfalls, something had to go.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.