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Colorado apartment manager tells all kids to get off her lawn

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Greg Campbell Contributor
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With just a few weeks remaining before school starts, kids everywhere are cramming their days with as much outdoor activity as possible — unless they live in The Orchards at Cherry Creek Park apartment complex in Centennial, Colo., which recently banned all forms of unsupervised childhood fun.

That includes pretty much everything kids like to do in the summertime — biking, skateboarding and all other “general extracurricular activities,” according to a new edict issued by apartment management.

Residents got the notice in their monthly newsletters.

“All children must be supervised by an adult at all times while playing outside,” it reads. “No sports activities, skateboarding, rollerblading, or general extracurricular activities are to take place in our community. If we see anyone violating any of the above activities or see any unsupervised children they will be sent home immediately.”

Manager Barbara Briggs told Denver’s 9News that the zero tolerance policy against fun and frivolity is for safety’s sake. She told the station that unsupervised kids climb in the dumpsters, throw rocks, get on top of the carport roofs and leave their scooters lying around.

“We’ve had people clipped,” she said. “We’ve had people fall.”

If kids want to risk a fall, she said they can do it in any of the nearby parks, but not on apartment property.

Some parents aren’t happy about the new rules, seeing it as discriminatory against families with young kids.

“They are basically telling us that children are not welcome here, please go,” said one parent who only gave his name as Peter, telling 9News that he feared retaliation if he were identified. “I really don’t understand what the kids can do in the summer if they cannot play.”

The Orchards is hardly the only neighborhood with policies against longstanding childhood pleasures that parents find overbearing. Last year, a homeowners association in the Stapleton neighborhood threatened to fine a couple because their 3-year-old daughter drew butterflies and hearts on the sidewalk in front of her house with chalk.

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Greg Campbell