Active Ride shop becomes inactive and has closed its doors last month. For most of the skate community their closing may have come as a shock, a slap in the face almost. There had been rumors going around for about a year prior but it was all speculation. I assumed it was because they couldn’t sell all of the pickle rick merch from last year or possibly too many insta-baddies who don’t know what thunder trucks are (lookin at you Redlands).
I decided to ask some of the homies active Redlands and see what they had to say about it..
Casey Frey
My first question would be what was your position at active and how long have you been working there?
I was a store manager for Redlands and Rancho for about 5 and a half years.
So how exactly did the company go out of business? I heard something about a bad loan.
Our company’s financial records have not been the greatest in recent years. Online shopping is making it increasingly difficult for all retailers to keep their doors open. Our new CEO was supposed to lead us to a stable business but failed incredibly bad. Active will be auctioned off Jan. 25th (I believe) to hopefully be purchased by anyone else besides our CEO.
So do you think that the company could possibly come back?
There is a small possibility. Not under the current CEO. Hopefully, there’s a couple of old Active heads trying to lift it up again and outbid the Jon (current ceo)
How was the last day?
The last day was terrible. 1st time in my life I ever had to do it. They only gave us a 3-day notice so we didn’t have time to plan much. 
But I have to say we had a fuckkn rager one of the nights and if you were there you won’t ever forget it haha
And what do you think shops can do to stay afloat even when a chain like active closes down?
Not sell to a fuckin corporation that has nothing to do with the skate industry. Active blew it when we let these shitty investors start taking over. And trust me when I say no one wanted it besides a select few. Skate shops need to stick to core skateboarding. That’s it. If you support the industry, you’ll have the support of the people in it. There are only a select few shops that are doing it right and I back it.
Amazing Advice! Which shop do you think is killing it rn?
Programme is one of the rarest shops out there. Straight skate and Records. They have crazy ass shows in their store and it’s always been a personal favorite of mine. That’s what the core skate culture used to be.. fuck all this hype brand bullshit and looking like a pretty boy.. kids are too worried about making skatepark edits while wearing some Gucci shit and supporting brands that don’t support skateboarding..
Did the Heineken board have anything to do with the company going bankrupt in the past?
Naw the Heineken board was just a play off graphic. Active’s done a bunch of quick release graphics that have actually done pretty well.
Did you have anything planned for another job?
Right now I’m just taking it one day at a time. Skating, drinking, writing music and drawing. All these things have been my passion for years, I finally have time to do all of them so I’m embracing it. But I have been thinking about the next step.. and that might be opening up my own shop. We’ll just have to wait and see tho.
In addition I wanted to get some more intel from the shop workers and shop riders perspective, the people that gave the shop it’s “cool” vibe that almost made it feel like real
skateshop. Josh Thrower gave me the rundown of what been going on the last few months.
It’s sad to see a company with that many loyal workers and even more loyal customers just sell the fuck out and shit on their whole community. Now I wasn’t the biggest fan of active but I have made so many memories over the years. I remember the time I broke my truck skating to work( fuck ventures) and I had to get a new set of trucks and the active shop worker helped me put on trucks asap and I was able to make it to work only a few mins late. Or the time I got high as shit and watched skate videos in the Rancho shop for hours with some of the skaters I looked up to. There was also the time at the Active X Skate Mental/3D demo when Brian Anderson(before I knew who he was) shoulder checked me but made sure I was good. Trevor Colden even gave me some props for landing a trick that day. Shit like that is memorable and stays with you forever.
All I can say is Rhythm Skateshop is open, go buy all your shit from there, support your local shops and I hope you guys used all of you active bucks!
I decided to have some people say a few words
J420N.NET 
Mur
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