A running joke about growing up in Maine goes like this: “You’re not a real Mainer unless, as a teenager, you partied in gravel pit.” For many, the phrase “pit party” evokes a halcyon response to “youthful indiscretions” and the perils of the teenage social scene.

Lewiston youth now enjoy a stone pit of their own: the brand-new municipal skateboard park, which opened Nov. 4. Backers say the park, funded with $250,000 of donated dollars and service, is the largest public outdoor recreation facility in the state.

If the 300 or so well-wishers who attended the opening are any indication, the skate park will become a fine community centerpiece, a centrifuge for future youth recreation and downtown revitalization projects, and perhaps a boost for the city’s maligned reputation for its management of public parks.

(This is a thinly-veiled reference to the continuing saga of the Maple Street Park. Only when it returns to its former splendor, will we stop bringing it up.)

But concerns are already being voiced about the behavior of skaters in the park. It’s not unexpected, as similar alarms have been sounded in other regional skate parks, such as the park that opened in Oxford this summer. In September, police briefly closed the park after reports of fights and littering.

After this brief interlude, a return to the founding vision of the park by its stewards has improved behavior, and kept it open without interruption. Skaters there were advised to report questionable activity straight to police, and even use cellphone cameras to document evidence.

Though made of stone and depressed in the earth, skate parks are not gravel pits, and their patronage shouldn’t reflect gravel pit sensibilities. The community worked too hard to bring the Lewiston skate park to life to have this tremendous public resource stained by allegations of rowdy misbehavior.

The skate park is a welcome addition to downtown, and its success is assured if the effort to build it equals the effort to manage it.