After numerous complaints about the constant plinking noise from the city's public pickleball courts, the city council for the affluent town of Camel, California, voted to permanently ban the sport.
PICKLEBALL!!!
The city is a tourist destination and a popular retirement spot for the rich and famous, making it the perfect pickleball hotspot, but the peace-and-quiet-loving residents appear to have won out in the battle for supremacy over their athletic neighbors.
On the one hand, it seems very California to ban playing pickleball at the city's only pickleball court, but on the other hand, one might argue that the pickleball craze has really gotten out of hand.
If you've ever been to Carmel, you'll know that the vibe of the wealthy tourist town filled with retirees is more quaint-German-storybook, less Plinko.
The town put in place a one-month temporary ban last month while they came up with a better long-term solution, but residents enjoyed the break from the constant noise so much, the council voted to keep the ban in place permanently.
One resident, Kimberly Edwards, said in the council meeting that while there's been an uptick in people playing tennis,
It's been so peaceful and quiet.
She went on to say that she wasn't sure how effective the ban would be, noting that,
These aren't supervised courts. You know that. They're not — there's no parks and rec department. So as I addressed in my letter: Who's going to enforce this? … Am I going to have to hear a noise and then call the police? Is a police officer going to have to be, you know, sitting there on these courts, supervising them?'
Carmel Mayor, Dale Byrne, is in favor of the ban, but admitted,
It's just a really difficult thing to enforce. And I can't ask the [police] chief to send his people up there. ... It's really sad that we can't figure this out.
I don't know about you, but if I were a pickleball player, I think I would take that statement as permission to go ahead and play the game just as loud as I want.
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