By Robert Simmons
According to witnesses, at approximately 3:30 pm Thursday, July 30, a group of 14 people entered the Peninsula Tennis Clubhouse, led by Stefan Boyland and Mike Shinzaki of Pickleball SD.
They dismissed warnings by manager Duncan Depew and staff that the club was a “tennis-only facility,” and proceeded onto the nearest court, where they set up two temporary pickleball nets, displacing the tennis members who had the court reserved.
The police arrived at approximately 4:30 pm, and were able to persuade the group to leave, but not until they had played on the court for approximately forty minutes.
Reportedly, the group claimed that Peninsula Tennis Club had no permanent Special Use Permit (SUP), and therefore the Peninsula tennis courts constituted a public space that anyone could use, without paying a court fee.
Police attempt to peacefully persuade pickleball players to leave.
According to Peninsula president Jon Saunders, “We now have a signed permit from the city, to deter further incidents like this one. The board is considering indefinitely banning all those who participated whom we can identify, due to their disruptive behavior.”
Besides displacing members, the incident disrupted a kid’s tennis camp also going on at the time. Eva Bonelli, a parent of two boys participating in the camp, felt that “taking instruction time away from these kids already on the court is just disappointing. I’ve been receptive to pickle ball and enjoy playing it myself, but the way these adults spoke to the kids and acted has soured me to any future proposed plans from Pickleball SD.”
{ 126 comments… read them below or add one }
Damn. If I were one of the pickleball players I would have wanted to get arrested just to say be able to tell my friends I had an arrest record for illegal pickleball.
chuckle chuckle.
How has a tennis club that hasn’t held a valid permit since 2018 been allowed to generate revenue using city courts?
As a side note, you can’t find any empty public PB courts ANY time of day in the greater SD area, it’s time to service our community better than PTC.
Agreed. I play at mission bay high school on the weekends and it’s always busy, but at least free.
Hi Chris. No badge of honor (getting arrested) for a good cause for us. I am one of the two pickleball organizers at Peninsula that day. We arrived at 2:45pm and played till almost 5pm. Thank you all for keeping an open mind.
Well it was meant to be tongue in cheek, but still it would make great bar conversation.
If it were Pickleball it would be even better . . .
From the classic folk song “Alice’s Restaurant” by Arlo Guthrie:
And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s
Where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after
Committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly
Looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father
Rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And
They was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the
Bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest
Father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly
‘N’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me
And said, “Kid, whad’ya get?” I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay
$50 and pick up the garbage.” He said, “What were you arrested for, kid?”
And I said, “Littering.” And they all moved away from me on the bench
There, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I
Said, “And creating a nuisance.” And they all came back, shook my hand,
And we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,
Father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
Bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of
Things, until the Sargeant came over.
Quite a discussion on this post at the Rag facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OB.Rag.blog
Why would Boyland and Shinzaki of Pickleball SD block tennis members who already had the court reserved? Why not just play their pickleminton at home or in a parking lot somewhere?
Seems like they’re saying PTC had no authority to reserve the public space to begin with.
Clearly they were doing this to make a point, though it could be counterproductive.
Triggerfinger, you are right. We were at Robb Field tennis courts to assert pickleball’s rights to demonstrate that there is no permit nor has there been for almost 4 years! The City has ignored pickleball for far too long. We submitted a permit application for this property on May 6th, almost 3 months ago. And verified we were the only ones that completed an application for permit. Pickleball should have a fair chance to compete for this property. It’s a pretty simple point.
Until pickle ball is in the Olympics it is not considered a legitimate SPORT & at most is a HOBBY that makes a very annoying noise.
To claim tennis is in decline is pure ignorance!
Tennis is still the #2 sport globally after soccer & has helped thousands of young people to earn college scholarships including myself
(San Diego State University).
To displace a sport that offers a great deal of opportunity for youths to advance in life for a trend that caters to the elderly is dangerous to future society.
Medical costs to repair the elderly that are getting injured playing pickle ball has skyrocketed & has over burdened our hospitals. Check out the verified data.
To label tennis players as entitled & elitist is a gross assumption based again on ignorance. My father was in the Navy & we were not country club members. I learned to play tennis by watching it on TV & hitting a ball against the side of a building for hours.
If not for public parks with free tennis courts & inexpensive clubs like PTC I would never even played the game officially.
The fact that pickleballers (is that what you’re called?) feel slighted by tennis players for not sharing a “tennis court” has everything to do with pickleballers being entitled.
I don’t walk onto a public “golf” course like Torrey Pines, Balboa or Coronado and demand to play football with 20-30 of my friends and protest when we’re asked to leave & cry foul that golfers are entitled & elitist. It’s a golf course for playing golf!
Now pickle ball has invaded (& that’s what it is…an invasion!) basketball courts throughout SD both indoors & outdoors displacing 100s of players of all ages. Talk about “entitlement”!
Where does it stop?
Most tennis players are peaceful loving souls, but fair warning to all pickleballers…basketball players are not so passive & accommodating.
Your little yellow whiffle balls will get stomped on with emphasis.
I recommend to campaign the City of SD to build your own facilities. Form clubs financed by future members if there are so many with no where to play. Quit being crybabies & trying to take over other sports facilities like tennis & basketball courts. You are not “entitled” to do so!
Duncan, his team & all the members of PTC deserve respect & acknowledgement that they are preserving a sport that has existed & thrived worldwide for centuries.
No ten.nis players had reserved those courts or were on those courts, and most of the other courts at PTC/Robb Field were empty except a couple others. The other players or lessons could have kept going and just let the pickleball players continue playing. The law was clearly on their side to be able to play there when PTC hasn’t had a valid permit for 4 years and they are City-built (taxpayer-built) courts.
And it is clear from the video that the courts were virtually empty when they arrived and that at no time were Juniors playing.
They need to change that name first if they want anyone to take them seriously. This was a dumb ass stunt.
If you think about it, the name of every sport could be considered stupid – even tennis. A sport played by elitists who think they have the monopoly on facilities.
I’m surprised the Rag is disparaging the pickleball people doing this as a stunt and not what it is; an act of defiance against the establishment. Something the Rag built it’s name on!
I don’t presume to speak for The Rag, bobo, that was my personal comment. That said, I don’t think I’d equate this little act if defiance with what The Rag has championed in the past.
Oh I would! It might not be as “serious” as the other issues of the past but it certainly is putting the little guy up against a very well funded and established entity who is prohibiting anyone other than players of “their” sport to use a public facility.
Imagine if the only people who are allowed to use a basketball court are those that play 5 of 5 full court and not 1/2 court games allowed?
Or if only chess players who have +100 hours of training, can only use a chess hall?
Or only right-handed bowlers are “real” bowlers?
The tennis people reek of elitism. Their sport requires a prohibitive (for most people) amount of training, expense, and skill.
In comparison, pickleball, with its silly name, is a democratic sport. Very little training and expense to enjoy it. Yet the tennis clubs are taking the tactics of the yacht & country clubs of the past.
They’ve enjoyed a monopoly for decades on the use of city-owned property. It amazes me they get that much support just on that point alone!
Well, I don’t know about all that elitism stuff but I do think space should be made to accommodate the new sport somewhere. The crux of the problem is that the pickle people are a for-profit enterprise, that’s what makes their actions dumb ass in my opinion. I don’t know how many for profit companies use city facilities, I’m sure there are more. But, this was not a good way to persuade people to let you use public space to make money.
Hi Geoff,
The Pickleball SD formal proposal to the City is as a nonprofit. I can confirm this, because I submitted it! As far as your last sentence, tennis is currently using the public space to make money (except, even without a valid permit). They were unable to produce a valid permit for the police, which is ultimately why we were allowed to stay. The police 100% affirmed our right to remain, which we have on video. We will be posting more info here soon, along with a link to video footage so you and others can decide for yourself.
Link to video mentioned in last comment, to see the police interactions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oikmzspBUew
I watched the video all the way through. I’d like to ask you, Mike, what do you think that accomplished? Just a direct, curious question, nothing more.
Great question. We have known for quite some time that Peninsula, like many other local tennis clubs, does not have an active valid permit. The City has confirmed this to us. It’s also public record, anyone can go look. But most of the local community does not know any of this. Why is it important? Why can’t folks just operate without one? Most of this is the City’s fault. They have an archaic permitting system, which has been in place for half a century and is outdated and flawed. It is intensely biased against community involvement and the possibility for change. We applied for a Special-Use permit for this space and others months ago. Those applications are currently collecting dust, despite the fact that our understanding is we were the first and only formal applicant. The City said the reason for this is that the ‘current tenant’ is in ‘good standing.’ They said they would never consider pickleball so long as tennis is there, unless tennis wants to leave. But why the special treatment? There is no current tenant, because there is no valid permit, a fact demonstrated on video and upheld by the police. So presently, nobody was ‘there first.’ Otherwise, the police would have removed us, instead of definitively reaffirmed our right to remain. Peninsula did not produce a permit because one does not exist. There is no current tenant. One has not existed for that space since 2018. Pickleball should be granted a fair and lawful permit application process, complete with competition, transparency, and full public participation. That is all ask for.
When this group of proponents first came before the OB planning board, they were a for-profit organization. This was a big sticking point with the community. Changing to a non-profit organization removes one of the strongest criticisms the proponents have faced. It does kind of level up the playing field.
I have not heard from any source that the tennis group using the space is making money. If you could substantiate that, it could affect the discussion.
Geoff, Peninsula states they do more than 10 clinics a week at $20-$25 per participant and 30 participants per clinic, and teach lessons and summer camps. If you check their report to the City earlier this year, they boast of all this. If you inspect their court logs (they won’t release them, but their members relay them to us), you can see those clinics accounted for and lessons given. And if you review the drone footage online, you can clearly count the number of folks on each court, ball baskets, and make out the instructors. This equates to roughly $500,000 a year in monies, yet the Peninsula reports just $3,000-4,000 a year derived from instructors/management, and about $40-$50K per year if you add membership, drop-ins, and tournaments. Their Form 990 shows this as well, going back to 2016 or before. This is all public record. Where is the money? Where is the missing, unreported $500K per year? If you ask members, they will tell you they pay cash for these lessons and clinics directly to instructors, the same people that manage the place. The management does not declare this money to the City or Federal government. We filed a formal complaint with the City. Andy Field said he may allow Peninsula to “cure” the problem. Something is very wrong at the Peninsula. And this is no small infraction. The expired permit clearly states it will be terminated immediately if sub-leasing or assigning rights to anyone other than the Permittee.
Isn’t the NFL a non-profit? Isn’t Sea World and every hotel in Mission Bay Park a for-profit, whos revenues help fund the MBPIF? I believe Barnes is a non-profit and their dues are twice as high as Peninsula and they just received a $2.5M state grant from taxpayers.
I care little about the profit vs. non-profit question so long as it’s well-utilized for recreation and inclusive to all, such as having some free/subsidized courts, hours, or clinics mixed in. Empty/locked courts on public land serve no one. Now if they’re able to operate as a non-profit and still provide the programming, even better.
I’ve never played pickleball, but if there is legitimate public demand, the city should assist in finding some existing space to convert while also looking at long term solutions. I’d say the same if cup-stacking or toad racing were all the rage and there wasn’t adequate space for it. I see people mocking the name of this sport, which is childish and shows their lack of consideration.
I get it, the actions by Mike and Stefan here may seem like an immature publicity stunt and you may not like them. But I find that irrelevant as well. Decisions should be based on merit of how to serve the public needs, with personal feelings set aside.
kh, Lighten up Francis, all I did was joke a little about the name. A little levity is helpful sometimes. I think its a little harsh to say that was childish and disrespectful.
And yes, for some reason I have never understood, the NFL is a non-profit. Why this has not been rectified by now is beyond me.
Interesting take bobo, I like the way you think. Will be interesting to see how this soap opera plays out.
I can hardly get police to pick up the phone in 40 minutes… and yet here they show up to stop some rogue pickleballers?
We’ve been reporting on the issue, whether a “compromise” hammered together by the OB Planning Board, or pickelball proposals or reports of conflicts between the “groups.”
I guess if that’s the distinction, then it’s ok for any 501c non-profit to monopolize a public use facility. Honestly, I don’t know why that would even matter (for profit or not-for-profit). The end result is the same: one group of people keeping another group of people from enjoying a public space. it’s absurd to me. i.e. middle-school behavior.
Mind you I have no skin in the game: I don’t play either of those sports. I’m just offended when I see some people keeping others who don’t play the “right” way (or look, or speak, or worship, etc.) from having equal access. I put the onus on the tennis people – who haven’t made any concessions in the spirit of sportsmanship, to come up with a solution that would make everyone equally happy (or unhappy).
Bobo, you’re correct. “The end result is the same: one group of people keeping another group of people from enjoying a public space.”
The picklemintoners blocked the tennis people from enjoying a public space.
Darn thing, eh?
Did the picklebiters physically remove the tennis players? Or did they arrive to an empty court that some non-present tennis players had reserved through an apparently illegitimate organization?
Is it first-come-first-serve? Or can I setup a desk in a public park (with no permit) and decide who gets to play?
Pickleball did not physically remove anybody. Tennis did physically remove temporary pickleball equipment. When pickleball arrived, all 6 of 6 tennis courts were empty, and 3 of 6 were empty when we left. There should not be any reservations for a public space for which no group possesses a valid, active permit. Watch this video to see the police interactions. They clearly affirmed our right to remain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oikmzspBUew
Your video does show a whole bunch of kids who look like they were supposed to play tennis. Was their tennis school disrupted?
No tennis school was disrupted. A handful of parents marched some youths over, either for the aesthetics, or to view the police interaction. But we had the court logs in advance, which we screenshotted on the YouTube video. The youth camp took place on the other half of the facility. And all 6 courts were empty on our half when we arrived, and 3 of 6 courts were still vacant when we left. When we did vacate, two adult men took the tennis court, and no youths hopped onto any of the 3 of 6 empty courts.
Hello Michael Shinzaki, I am one of those parents you are referring to. I honestly was feeling bad for you folks not having any courts to play on until I read your comments about no tennis was disrupted and that us parents marched the kids over. Please don’t use the kids and parents in that poor manner to paint a one-sided picture of what happened that day.
You say that no tennis school was disrupted, well for my girls, for the other kids in attendance, and for their parents who came to watch, yes, it was disrupted. It was the last day of camp and there was going to be a little ceremony where they present certificates acknowledging the kids’ individual accomplishments of the week.
It was also the camp’s 50th year anniversary so there was much to celebrate. The ceremony and festivities should have taken place on the bleachers next to the court you guys took, but instead it had to take place outside of the complex. The kids could have been enjoying their popsicles in the shade on the deck and showing off what they learned on that court, but instead, I’m assuming for their safety, the coaches kept them outside of the complex.
My younger daughter who was the youngest one there and nervous about the camp ended up loving the camp and was really looking forward to showing me her new skills when I got there.
Instead, when I arrived, my girls were filling me in on what was going on. From their point of view, one of their coaches had to leave early to deal with a group of people who were not supposed to be there. My little one was starting to feel scared and that last-day-of-camp excitement was dampened.
So yes, for the kids and myself, the camp was disrupted.
As for your comment about us “marching some youths over…for aesthetics”… Boy don’t even get it twisted!! The kids were not marched over by anyone. And they were not there “for aesthetics.” In my case, my older daughter had sticky hands from her popsicle and went to use the restroom which is located inside the clubhouse. When she was taking a long time to come back outside, I went inside to find that she, along with other curious kids, were on the deck watching the police interaction. I, too, couldn’t resist watching the drama unfold.
When I finally understood this crazy situation, it was just hilarious to me (sorry, I don’t play tennis or pickleball so I couldn’t take this fight seriously). But then, one of the pickleball players took it a tad bit too seriously and started yelling to the kids saying they have to fight for what they believe in…freedom of speech…etc. If the guy had said #PickelballLivesMatter I would have died laughing.
There was one nice pickleball lady who tried to say they don’t mean any harm right as that guy was becoming unhinged. Umm, okay sure lady haha! As we walked to the parking lot, that same disgruntled guy in the Adidas shirt was outside shouting and it looked like he was about to start a fight with the older man. We walked in another direction to avoid a possible fight.
Now I am worried that this will happen when I take my kids there for lessons. So, as a worried mom, I am kindly asking you Michael, if you guys plan to do this again, please do not do it when children are present, regardless of what courts they are on. Also, I don’t think you should bring that one guy for obvious reasons haha! I do hope that you all reach an agreement or that you find courts to play on and nothing like that ever happens again.
Was the court in question reserved for the ceremony? I didn’t see that on the reservation log, nor did I see any pickleball players obstructing use of the bleachers.
Seems to me PTC staff and participants disrupted the kids ceremony by calling the police without basis, and unnecessarily escalating the situation. PTC could’ve acknowledged the permit issues which they were already aware of, left the pickleball players alone, and shifted that one possible tennis booking to a different open court.
It’s a shame the city and PTC have dropped the ball on this. The permit should’ve been renewed before expiring in 2018 which was a long long time ago, and prior to Covid. I can’t believe people are still using Covid as an excuse to cover incompetence.
@triggerfinger As a mom leaving kids in the care of a camp, I do think it was right for the staff (who was responsible for their safety) to call the police to report a group of unknown people whose intentions were unclear at the time. Nobody knew how that situation was going to develop. So with children present, I believe it is always better safe than sorry.
I mean they literally walked in there with pickleball paddles and nets, said “we’re going to use this court” and started playing pickleball.
Let’s not pretend the director was protecting the children from terrorists. He probably already knows these guys, their efforts have been well publicized. And he though the police would take his side.
lol.
People coming to an empty court to play a game are not a threat. It is simply clutching your pearls to say the childrens’ safety was at stake.
Please email mike@pickleball-sd.com if you would be interested to have a phone or in-person discussion. I think we can come to some common understandings.
Hi Vern, we have it on video (we will post it, soon) that when we arrived, all 6 of 6 tennis courts were vacant, and 3 of 6 were empty when we left. We did not impede any tennis activity. The youth camp was on the other half of the facility. We know this because we had the court logs in advance. We will post a video soon so you can see the police interaction and courts for yourself. In the absence of a valid permit, the space is public, and we were the only ones on the east courts when we arrived. The police clearly affirmed our right to remain. They did not convince or even ask us to leave, as the article states.
Vern, you are incorrect. Look at the video and see Michael’s comment below.
There were several open, available courts. The Rag’s reporting which was inaccurate and sloppy journalism at best. What’s really happening is the tennis instructors don’t want to lose their “honey hole” where they make lots of unreported income. It’s all about the money. The pickleball group is proposing a reasonable, equitable offer to make a public facility one that best serves the community at NO Cost to the city(i.e. taxpayers). The economic impact impact on the community and it’s businesses would be significant as a result of their proposal. The lack of transparency clearly demonstrates that their is something hiding in the shadows that they don’t want light shed upon. The city has done nothing to be transparent either and in fact, has been resistant to serve the community as a whole. Taxpayers have a right to know how THEIR property is being managed. This protest brought this situation to light so that what this “stunt” was successful as here. We are discussing it. Well done. It’s surprising tat in a conter culture community like OB would have an issue with civil discourse. The video clearly shows who was civil and who was not.
Well people did pay for and reserve the time. Whether or not you think think public space should charge is a whole separate issue. Public golf courses charge for use and you have to reserve a time slot. Should that be put to a stop? The public skatepark up in Venice Beach doesn’t allow BMX bikes. Granted they don’t charge for use but they still exclude one type of user from another.
When we got on the court at about 3:00pm, there were zero tennis players there. At about 4:00pm when a few tennis players arrived, they they were all able to play. We used one court, tennis players used three which still left two other empty courts. There was no shortage of available courts. Check the video.
bobo- Excuses, excuses. If someone really wants something, they find a way.
I did not grow up with money. I took my cheap wooden tennis racquet and used tennis balls down to the elementary school and learned to hit off the wall. There is a good chance anyone can find an old tennis racquet on a Facebook page or at Goodwill for cheap and get a $2 can of tennis balls and find a wall to hit off of just like many young kids have. If you follow the sport at all, or if you do a little research, you will find there are many pros who started off the same way in worse conditions than many of us have lived in the U.S.
Serbian kids in their war-torn country found ways to learn the sport. One female pro who was at one time #1 in the world played tennis in an empty swimming pool in a war-ravaged area. So to say that tennis is just for elites is just an excuse because you probably never tried it. USTA is making tennis more accessible to children in inner cities than ever before. Do some research and quit whining & complaining.
Also, pickleball can be just as expensive to play as tennis. But you can do your own research on that too.
As someone who does neither sport but would far more likely at this point in my life take up pickleball before tennis, I think it’s inconsiderate on the part of the pickleball players to block the tennis players who reserved and paid for the court(s) use and time slot. Whether or not these tennis courts should charge for use on public land I don’t have legal knowledge to debate it but the fact is, the people who DID reserve and pay should not have been blocked from doing so. If the courts are being underutilized, that’s a valid issue to debate for further use of this public land but until then, let people who forked over the money and set time to play, play.
On another note, I would like to see more disc golf on public lands than regular golf. That doesn’t give me the right to gather up my friends and take over a local public golf course when other people paid and reserved the time for use. If I do that, than I should expect legal action, as much as a first world problem this is.
But who did they pay to reserve this public land? Some dude named Guido? Or Duncan? Because that’s what it looks like. Prickleball guys have demonstrated this dude named Duncan didn’t have any authority to be reserving courts.
It’s like when that homeless guy set up in a public parking lot and collected fees from people driving in, and they got pissed when they got tickets anyways.
Hi Chris,
When we arrived, 6 of 6 tennis courts on our half were empty and 3 of 6 were empty when we left. Hence we did not block any tennis activity. Here is a link to video from that day so you can see for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oikmzspBUew
How would this go down if it were a group of soccer players, field hockey, or basketball players attempting to use the courts? Or better yet, a homeless person deciding they wanted to set up on the courts because “there’s nothing saying we can’t be here.”
Just because pickleball uses something similar to a racket doesn’t make it tennis. These are tennis courts and they should be used for tennis, regardless of permit this permit that. If the city spent money of making tennis courts, they should probably try to maintain the intended use of the investment. The video just shows how entitled the pickleball Karens are.
If you look at the video, there is only person that is angry, shaking a finger, and acting entitled. You’ll notice it’s NOT a pickleball player. Go to 03:12 of the video.
Hi David, I have to step in and defend that mom in the youtube video. I was there and witnessed the scene that took place right before 03:12. This video is obviously edited and cuts straight to the scene of that mom while cutting out what happens right before where the pickleball player in the adidas shirt started to yell and tell the kids to “fight for what they believe in.” You could even hear the guy who recorded the video trying to calm him down saying “it’s okay, no more” (03:33). So no, there wasn’t only one person acting out. I don’t know if you have kids, David, but as a mom, I know that when a disgruntled stranger comes at your kids like that guy did, mama bears will definitely come out swinging! There is nothing “entitled” about that. Also, it was pretty disappointing that the kids’ last-day-of-camp festivities that should have taken place on the deck and bleachers were disrupted.
I don’t play tennis or pickleball, so I was actually feeling bad that these guys don’t have courts to play on, but not anymore. David, if you plan to do this again, I’m asking you kindly to please not do it when there are kids present, regardless of what courts they are on. Also, for sure don’t bring that guy haha! As we were walking to the parking lot, I saw him arguing with an older fellow and I was afraid he was going to start throwing punches at him! I had to redirect my girls to avoid them.
Anyways, this is a friendly reminder to not pass judgement based on a one-sided edited video. There are 2 sides to every story folks! I hope you guys reach a compromise in the future and do so civilly.
correct me if i’m wrong but i did not see any children there when they showed up.
it looks like they were doing their camp on the other completely separate part of the facility. and they could’ve kept at it if not for the lookiloo parents heading over to the other court to watch the argument. did they have any authority over the permit or entry rules that made it necessary to stop what they were doing and get involved?
@triggerfinger The camp’s formal instruction did take place on the other courts. However, at the conclusion of the camp, a little ceremony for the kids and a celebration with popsicles should have taken place on the shaded deck and bleachers next to where the pickleball group set up their stuff. The ceremony was moved outside of the clubhouse under the big tree and then the festivities ended. After using the restrooms that are located inside the clubhouse, some of the kids stayed to watch the police interaction and my daughter was one of them. I went to get her and couldn’t resist staying to watch the crazy situation unfold so I guess that makes me a lookiloo parent haha! But honestly, now I’m glad I stayed because what I witnessed in person was not wholly represented in that one-sided youtube video. Too bad the tennis people didn’t have someone on their side recording to make a video in their favor as well. This whole drama is new to me so I am unable to answer your question regarding entry rules. What I do know is that it’s scary that a group of people can just enter the facility like that where a children’s camp is taking place. I am not a tennis or pickleball player, just a concerned parent who had left work early in the hopes of enjoying the last day of camp with her girls.
Editordude: The Rag welcomes any articles from either side – let’s have a debate – before it degenerates into fisticuffs, please. Send any signed response, statement, post or intended article to our email: obragblog@gmail.com
Also, the pickle ball players’ video has been posted twice in the comments.
It’s a wonder neither the community at large or local government has resolved this issue which has been simmering for months.
I’m a tennis player. I’ve been wanting to learn Pickleball. But it seems to me that if the PickleballSD thinks they have a beef with the City, maybe a protest that doesn’t involve the police, when they don’t have enough resources to be able to go to real crimes in progress, might be a better idea.
This little stunt just turned off a lot of people, particularly those of us who don’t like to see police resources wasted. You could have made your point lots of other ways, but I wonder when they police were there dealing with you, what people who really needed police help were ignored.
Glenn, I 100% agree that police involvement was not required. We did not call the police. Tennis folks called the police on us and asked them to remove us. Instead, the police reaffirmed our right to be there. Police did not even ask us to leave. If anything, the police dealt with the tennis management, who are operating without a valid permit. If you’d like to view the police interaction, the video is linked below. I don’t want to see police resources wasted either. We didn’t want them to be called, and we didn’t call them. We were playing pickleball on public park space, for which we have written confirmation there is no valid permit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oikmzspBUew
Michael,
Taking your logic to another possible conclusion. Let’s say I believe that CVS has wronged me in some way. (Perhaps I bought something online and they haven’t refunded me for my return.) So I go to CVS, take something off the shelves, and try to leave. A CVS employee calls the cops. I blame it on him because CVS was wrong in the first place.
That is exactly what is going on here. You have a beef with the City. Your beef may be 100% legitimate. But instead of taking it in front of a judge, which would be the proper way to do it, or even organizing a protest outside the tennis courts, you chose to do a takeover of the courts without paying fees and then blame the employee for calling the cops. Then you hide behind a moral screen, which is the equivalent of me leaving CVS without paying because I believe they owe me money and then trying to justify it.
Again, your point may be right. However, your methods are ineffective and have done little to alienate people. There are more effective ways.
The difference between the analogy and what happened in this case: In the analogy something illegal was performed as a reaction (taking something off the shelves and leaving). In our case, we didn’t do anything illegal. We are pointing out illegal activity. Even though tennis called the police on us, the police ended up siding with us and affirming our rights, and coming down on tennis.
We are not ‘causing’ trouble, we are bring awareness to existing trouble. Methodology may be imperfect here and there, but we cannot remain silent on it. The City Attorney and City Auditor have confirmed to us in writing last month and the month before that they are investigating Peninsula Tennis Club for bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars per year under the table and failing to report it on their state and federal IRS forms. Most of the local community did not know this, until now. Thanks again for your feedback and I am glad we can have a productive discussion on these issues.
All of this fraud and tennis tyranny is insult to injury and is wasting time and injury to get to a solution that works for all. How the City of San Diego can let this go on with tax payer money is fraud. The rest of the stewards and representatives of Robb Field should be ashamed. The peninsula tennis club are a bunch of clowns as well. I hope justice is served and fraud charges are brought. In the mean time our community doesn’t need such a diversion from finding a solution to the challenge of meeting the growing demand for more Pickleball courts. The Tennis Mafia and The City of San Diego have shown their true colors as nothing but knuckle heads. Embarrassing as a tax payer and lifelong San Diegoian.
Tennis Tyranny will be the name of a new punk band.
I am perplexed why this group tried to monopolize tennis courts, you don’t need tennis courts to play pickleball, it can be set-up in parking lot even. Shameful to take away courts being used for their actual purpose from children.
Did you watch the video? Are you following the comments? No children were denied tennis. They had finished with their clinic across the way and were brought over as props by the tennis people. Your comment that pickleball can be played in a parking lot perfectly illustrates the elitist attitude of the tennis community.
David please stop referring to the children as props brought over. They were supposed to finish their tennis clinic with a small ceremony and popsicles at the clubhouse, but this fiasco took over that space. The kids had every right to be there (as kids, not props) to use the clubhouse facilities for restrooms or to wait there to be picked up. If you didn’t want this scene to happen in front of the kids, then maybe your group should not have done it in the first place.
Also, a google image search for “can pickleball be played on a parking lot” did confirm that yes, it can. So Mila has a point. It can also be played on basketball courts, volleyball courts, badminton courts and inline hockey rinks.
OMG, LOL! “Pickleball can be played in a parking lot…” That right there perfectly shows the elitist attitude of the tennis community! Let them eat cake!
One thing I do kind of get a kick out of this “protest”. The 60 year old me does consider the fact that these are tennis courts made for tennis and people did pay for and reserve the time. The punk rocker in me admires the moxie of the pickleball players at the same time and I can relate. Reminds me of going in places we were not welcome to ruin other people’s time just by being in their presence.
Plus like I said, I would more likely take up pickleball than tennis.
Now they’re going to have to empty the courts and refill them.
Reality Check:
I arrived at Peninsula Tennis Club at about 3:45 pm on the day in question to play tennis; this was shortly after the Pickleball Group set up on Court 7.
My friend Lesley was there practicing with her son and watching tennis with her son from about 11-3 pm that day. She noted that the courts were relatively full until about 2 pm and then less full when she left at about 3 pm.She also noticed a drone flying low over the courts sometime just before she left. This may or may not have flown by someone in the Pickleball group.
When she left, she noticed the Pickleball crowd in the parking lot admiring a Corvette and apparently waiting to go in until others left, and there was a lull in play.The video Mike Shinzaki shared shows them entering and making their comments about the courts being empty. Yes, the courts were relatively empty at 3 pm but were not empty before 3 pm and were relatively full by 5 pm.
The Pickleball courts at Barnes were empty at 11:00 am on Tuesday when another friend was there (I can provide photos as desired), and I periodically see them empty mid-day when I drive east on I-8.
All courts and sports facilities are empty sometimes, just as classrooms and office buildings are empty sometimes. The fields at Robb Field are often empty but then fully occupied at other times. People work sometimes. I am working now but will play later.
The Pickleball group, led by Stefan and Mike, were waiting in the parking lot and then occupied the courts during a lull to make a point and to create a PR opportunity. They succeeded but their video was not representative of the whole situation and what they did was not a nice thing to do. I was there when the police arrived. Yes, the police were called as it was an unusual scene and the pickleball players would not pay or recognize the club’s responsibility to manage the courts. The police handled themselves and the situation extraordinarily well. They made some calls and eventually did encourage the Pickleball players to leave and disperse; this appears to not be included in the video shared by Mike. The police also noted that PTC and its members had been paying for the upkeep of the courts and suggested that the Pickleball players not “nitpick” and disperse to which the Pickleball players eventually agreed to do; they felt they made their point.
YES, PTC did not have a signed and updated Special Use Permit (SUP). The SUP was in-process and in a process that PTC cannot control. However, please NOTE that Parks and Rec have been updating the SUPs for many of the tennis clubs and the last few years have been challenging with COVID and other changes. PTC and Parks and Rec have had a good relationship throughout the process. PTC and Robb Field also have a good relationship. And, yes, everyone would like an updated SUP but this was not and is not the end of the world.
PTC was and is continuing to maintain the club and the courts consistent with its previous SUP. In fact, PTC and its members have paid roughly $100,000 over recent years to resurface the courts, rescreen the courts, and for other upkeep. Unfortunately, PTC was vandalized the next day and some of the windscreens were burned; these will be replaced soon.
This is a part of being in a public park in Ocean Beach.
PTC and its members support Pickleball players’ desires to have more courts. HOWEVER, PTC members have been using, supporting, and playing on these courts for over 40 years and do not want these courts used for Pickleball. PTC and many of its members are happy to work constructively with Pickleball players (not necessarily with Stefan and Mike given their behavior) to build new courts in the community (perhaps even at Robb) and/or repurpose other facilities that are not being used.
No matter what Stefan and Mike say, or what random pictures they show, PTC courts are used, paid for, and supported by, and for, tennis.
Finally, I would not classify the members, pros, or management of PTC as “elitist.” PTC is a community, public park with annual fees of less than $200/yr and no charges for children and juniors. It is one of the least expensive to play tennis in the city and one of the most welcoming. Yes, there are occasional issues or unfortunate situations. However, the head pro, Ed Collins is a San Diego legend; he is the former Collegiate Coach at USD for many years and has been leading the Robb Field pros and experience for 10+ years. ANYONE who knows Ed knows him to be kind, an excellent teacher, brilliant with kids and juniors, and one of best people to have on staff.
Duncan Depew who manages the club is equally kind, humble, and great with kids and juniors. Bob, Darice, and others involved in the clinics and lessons area and also great members and well respected in the tennis community and beyond. THE REALITY is simply that PTC has been a leading San Diego and Point Loma tennis club for years, is successful, is self-supporting, and wants to remain a tennis facility and continue to serve its members and guests without disruption.
Management and many members are happy to help the pickleball community develop facilities as appropriate and within the process but PTC is not available for a hostile takeover.
In Rancho Penasquitos, Pickleball players have been setting up nets in the parking lot of Park Village elementary and in the basketball court across the street at Creekside Park. I played there for a couple of hours one day.
Pickleball courts can be set up on any flat blacktop or concrete. The elementary, middle schools, and high schools have a plenty of huge blacktops and concrete places where tons of Pickleball courts could be set up. I don’t understand why this group is set on targeting tennis court facilities, when tennis has been booming since CoVid.
I like pickleball for fun as I think most tennis players do. Many of my tennis friends play pickleball now also. But, I don’t understand why the expansion of pickleball needs to come at the expense of tennis.
Something no one has mentioned is that Padel tennis that is growing 3x the rate of pickleball in Europe. I tried it at Barnes Tennis Center and liked it better than pickleball.
I also play badminton regularly. There are not enough courts in SD. And bowl league – there are not enough bowling alleys in SD. Hmmm… there seems to be a repeating theme…
I love and compete in many sports, but tennis is still the best.
Most people don’t know that tennis has been shown to be the best sport for longevity and teaches great life lessons.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2018/09/17/want-to-live-longer-take-up-tennis/
“But, I don’t understand why the expansion of pickleball needs to come at the expense of tennis.”
That’s not what’s being asked here 9n my opinion. It appears that the pickleball side has shown more than enough evidence that there is more capacity of tennis courts than there is demand. Giving up a few courts (that only a max of 4 people can play at a time) to accommodate pickleball appears to maximize the utilization of the facility.
But I get it. NO ONE likes change when it might affect them. Look at the near universal hatred for a simple round-about – even though it’s actually making traffic flow better than before. Change is scary. But relax. Allowing pickleball play won’t usher the antichrist to end the world!
You forgot to the mention the part where PTC has been using these city courts for FREE for 40 years. I’m sure Ed and Duncan are great guys and coaches. But basically they are running their for profit businesses at a public facility at no cost to them. And the courts are not paid for by tennis. They are paid for by the taxpayers…who do not make a penny off of the mid six figure revenue stream that is generated. I’m not against people making money but it should be transparent and ALL groups should be able to bid and win the right to operate the facility. Also, the permit expired two yeras prior to covid. As far as new courts, they are expensive and the city will not use it’s limited budget to build new ones. That is why SHARING underutilized public owned facilities/courts is the answer. Barnes and Pacific Beach Tennis clubs are also on city owned property. They are thriving yet can still absorb the tennis players from PTC. However I believe the rub is that those two city owned tennis centers cannot absorb the clinics and private lessons that are so profitable for just a few people on staff at PTC.
The tennis club is a non-profit. One of the commenters estimated how much money they are taking in, based on virtually nothing. Get the real information from the tennis club before making such judgments.
We have actually asked. Not only did they say no, but whatever public info like board meeting minutes that they previously posted on line, they have taken down.
Financial statements for non profits must be made public. The information can usually be found at the Secretary of State website.
Geoff, the money estimations are substantiated. We have combed through all the publicly available data with legal counsel. The City gave us all of their recent financial documentation. We also have their IRS Form 990’s (public record). And we have their official court reservation logs (relayed to us by concerned members) and Board Minutes.
On February 3rd 2022, PTC wrote a letter to the City saying: “In addition to private lessons, PTC’s instructors hold 10 junior and adult clinics per week in which both members and nonmembers participate.” Website says $20 for members and $25 for non-members for clinics. We estimate 30 players per clinic, based on numerous trusted individuals’ testimonies and aerial video footage (on our website) entailing a consecutive weeks’ worth of data, skipping no hours. Anecdotal reports say $60 for private lessons and we see them on the court logs. Extrapolate these numbers for 365 or even 330 days a year. We’ve seen some court logs showing 20 clinics in a week. That’s 20 clinics*30 people*$20 = $12k in one week alone on just clinics. And yet, the reported revenue most years is sub-$50k, instead of an estimated $500k+.
Every dollar of revenue is supposed to go through PTC itself and not paid in cash directly to any management figure or coach. They are systematically running 90% of the total revenue, like a business, through their own personal for-profit individuals, blatantly violating the permit. NONE of this money is being accounted for on PTC’s books. None is getting reported to the City or the Federal government. This breaks item #31 of the permit, which says you can’t sublease or assign permit rights to individuals or entities outside of the permit, which was for PTC only.
We have almost every document and data point for the past six years. It’s (I believe) all available to the public. There is significant omission, purposely not accounting for the biggest components. It’s not off by a little bit. It’s off by $500k or more per year by our calculations. And that’s very much not allowed. The City Attorney and City Auditor have launched formal investigations into the Peninsula Tennis Club for financial malpractices (confirmed to us in writing). The City/Parks should be addressing these missing finances. The permit also says a permittee owes per diem back-rent if they overstay an expiry, which cannot be renewed or rolled over but rather reapplied for. It’s been 1,300 days!
As I commented earlier, non profits have to file financial statements showing revenue and expenditures. If they are truly a non profit, this information is readily available. No estimates or assumptions need be made.
Geoff, you are correct! Non profits are supposed to file ALL revenue collected at the club. But Peninsula does not. And I believe they would admit this to you if you ask John Saunders the President of their board. They believe it is okay for the club to advertise lessons, clinics and camps their managers/pros conduct, who have worked their 35 years, and have those managers COLLECT money directly in cash/check made out to the pros and thereby the Peninsula does not have to report any of this money.
Problem is the”expired permits” and ALL special use permits we have seen for tennis clubs, explicitly prohibit this type of behavior. Only the Permittee has the right to collect money on its property. And only the Peninsula has that Permit. Not the individuals that work there and manage the club.
Essentially the Club is allowing this behavior to go on, where roughly 90% of the revenue generated from the tennis court, they think, do not need to be reported to the City (on its required disclosures) or to the IRS (Form 990). In fact the permit has language strictly forbids this without express written permission from the City which we checked has NEVER been given. The permit goes on to say that if this is done, the permit will be terminated immediately!
And when we say $500K is being paid (most in cash and some in personal check to the mgt) but not accounted for by the Permittee, the Peninsula, we mean it!
We submitted this complaint to the City Attorney 3 months ago.
If this is all correct, the club is in violation of the state corporation laws for non-profits. The place to file a complaint is with the Secretary of State.
It doesn’t make any sense that there are NO designated pickleball courts in ALL is San Diego. One tennis court can be 4 pickleball courts. Why is asking for use of a public property payed for by taxpayers so controversial? The cement is already there. There are clearly enough courts to share. They are all not being utilized. To tell Pickleball players to go use a parking lot or a basketball court is ridiculous. Come on… do the right thing here. We teach our kids to share. Let’s lead by example. #keepitclassysandiego
Michael,
You have said twice now that, “The City Attorney and City Auditor have launched formal investigations into the Peninsula Tennis Club for financial malpractices (confirmed to us in writing).” Would you kindly post a copy of this written documentation, or put a link to it. I think this would be of great interest to many people.
I’m never going to get the 25min of my life I just wasted reading all these comments back am I?
No, but it’s not like you were forced to read them. Plus they are kind of entertaining don’t you think?
Allowing dual play of tennis and pickleball on the same courts only exacerbates the problem: There will still be a shortage of courts for both sports. Pickleball enthusiasts should utilize their time, money, and energy more wisely by advocating for their own facilities instead of trying to take over tennis courts.
This is really inappropriate behavior, and from adults at that! It’s also not the first time pickleball players have shown inappropriate behavior; it’s just the first time it’s made the news.
Agreed. We think multipurpose courts are a bad idea too. There is no shortage of tennis courts. We have the data to back tghis claim up. Mike and Stefan have been advocating for years. I have been helping in the last year or so. We have sent countless emails to elected officials and attended my local community plannity group meetings. I have met with my city council member and his staff. We have made hundreds of phone calls. I have zoomed in to city council and Parks and Rec board meetings. We have taken an official Parks and Rec report that says that there are plenty of existing public pickleball debunked it (we have data to prove it). We debunked this official city report by having many many volunteers spend hours upon hours reviewing city maps, calling rec centers and tennis clubs, and physically visiting courts to verify our findings. They city now agrees we are correct about the data and that their official report was wrong and more pickleball courts are needed. We have jumped through every hoop they have asked. But city officials have more or less gone silent now that we have checked all the boxes. All we have received is a vague commitment from the city to add stripes to existing single basketball courts throughout the city. No nets, no nothing. Just a few painted lines in neighborhood parks. Our best way to advocate for pickleball now is draw attention to this city controlled problem. We did so peacfully and lawfully. It is not bad behavior. Is it uncomfortabke for some? Sure. It was uncomfortable for me to participate. But someone has to make our voices heard because the status quo is not working. The politicians need to make hard decisions about scarce resources for the best outcome for everyone, not just the best outcome for tennis that has been getting a free ride and monopolizing under used courts for decades.
David,
You say that “Mike and Stefan have been advocating for years”. Just a different perspective here. Pickleball has gained popularity very quickly. Three years ago, 3.5M people played the game. Today, it’s over 5M. Still growing very fast, with 33% growth last year.
So it wasn’t that long ago that this was a niche sport, and frankly not big enough for parks and rec departments to worry about. It takes governments and parks and rec departments time to adjust.
It reminds me of when snowboarding started. Skiers hated snowboarders. Did everything they could to drive them off the mountain. Many, many mountains outlawed snowboarding completely. (Alta still doesn’t). It took well over a two decades to to get mainstream acceptance and for ski-resorts to adapt to the needs of the boarder. What did it? Popularity.
I don’t understand the mentality and unwillingness to accommodate another growing sport. “[advocate] for their own facilities instead of trying to take over tennis courts.”
It’s clear that there are a lot of people not willing to “take away” anything existing for tennis even through there is more than enough evidence that (1) there is more capacity than demand for tennis courts, and (2) there is more demand than capacity for pickeball.
There is nothing in the municipal code that guarantees tennis should be preserved above all other court sports. But that’s the mentality that I’m seeing here. What makes tennis superior to pickleball other than an entrenched minority unwilling to share public resources?
On the flip side, why does pickleball get to “take over” an established tennis club that has been there for I don’t know for how long and invested i don’t know how many dollars on improvements? I don’t doubt that there is a need for pickleball courts in San Diego. According to Pickleball-SD, there are 50,000 people wanting to play, where they got that number, I don’t know, with that said, I don’t have numbers to the contrary (but I could make some up). Also, it sounds like the expired permit could be the City’s fault, so PTC gets punished for that?
Here’s reporter Dan Plante from KUSI and his take on the “take-over.” Dan must have read the OB Rag’s report, as he brought up some of our points.
https://www.kusi.com/pickleball-players-stage-takeover-of-peninsula-tennis-club-to-make-a-point/
Frank, Dan did get two points dead wrong which I shared with him after the story posted. Not a huge deal but worth noting. I posted this along with two graphics that show the point as well. I don’t think I can load a jpeg image here to illustrate a point?
Except to Dan Plante:
1- We never interrupted the kids camp. They were on 4 of the 6 courts on the WEST side of club. We had 1 court on the east side by the clubhouse. We never saw the kids till 4:30pm at the end of our demonstration and then the police were trying to figure out what to do. Their camp ended at 4:30pm (see court log attached – its in the video we posted a the 3:27 minute marker for about 10 seconds) and kids came over to watch the hoopla. One of the tennis leaders was telling the kids what we were doing is wrong and that we were being bad, and some mother got pissed (you saw this) when a pickleball player said stand up for your rights or something like that…and started screaming at a pickleball player to leave the courts. We learned the next day the club wanted to take pics of the kids by the clubhouse on the court for some trophy ceremony. We surely would have moved and let them do a photo op if they asked. Truth is the police were there affirming our rights to be there a couple of minutes later and saying we could stay and we we left 15 minutes later…and kids got their trophy pics in at 4:45pm. Kids handled it better than adults!
2- Tennis declined by 6% from 2010-2019 before pandemic while pickleball grew over 4,000%. Most outdoor sports including tennis and pickleball grew fast from 2020 till now. But the long term trend for tennis is stagnant. Long slow decline or stagnation at best for a decade before pandemic. All of this data is from the Tennis Industry Magazine which the USTA and Tennis magazine quotes. I think it is the foremost tennis magazine dedicated to stats on tennis. http://www.tennisindustrymag.com/issues/202109/industry-research.pdf
Sorry Stefan, with all due respect, it is likely BS that the kid’s camp was not interrupted. You may not have been on their court, but the commotion that your group caused, and you knew it would cause a commotion, caused a distraction. I wouldn’t put the blame squarely on your groups shoulders, I mean it is human instincts to check out what the ruckus was about, but there wouldn’t have been a ruckus if you didn’t show up to Tennis “only” club to play pickleball.
After these 2 stories and ALL the comments, Dan Plante’s story, The article in the U-T, I still have zero understanding why you and your group think it is acceptable to try to take over the courts at PTC. Your protest (or whatever you want to call it) should be with the City, not PTC or it’s members.
Sorry Not Sorry, the reason I don’t believe we disrupted the kids camp, is the courts the kids were on were 200 feet away separate by a club house, then 200 feet of grass, then further separated by a 12 foot fence with a windscreen on it…they could not see nor hear us. We only played pickleball on 1 court of the 6 on the west courts and we were quiet. I did speak to Duncan who was taking care of it with me. He came out to talk to us about 3 times. About an hour after we got there, Ed Collins came over and spoke to me on video for 5 minutes, but the camp had 4 courts and then said he had to go right back to his camp. He had multiple instructors for those 4 courts of kids camps and he was only over with me for 5-minutes and it was a cordial discussion. He was shocked the Club had NO PERMIT for the premises, and has not had one for 4 years. He actually said to me “You would think John Saunders (President of the Board) would not know if we this were the case.” And I replied to him, “Yes, you would thinks so.” He said “we were asking for trouble” but in a very nice way. He said he understood our rationale. He appeared bewildered that his club had no permit and that the public/pickleball had equal rights to use the premises. And he said he had to get back to his camp. For this first 90 minutes or so, there was very little commotion. There was no yelling or screaming by anyone. Someone gave me the finger with both hands at the same time, buy they did not yell at me. Once the police came and then went away for 20 minutes that is when the rudeness started from tennis players (trying to disassemble the pickleball court and obstructing play by standing in the middle of the court and arguing. Duncan did a great job removing him from court (which I showed) and play continued, and then the screaming by that lady commanding us to leave her courts.
Anyway, I wanted you to hear this from me, as I was there and one of two folks leading the peaceful demonstration. And we’ve done this after 5-years essentially being ignored. And yes, ultimately this is the CITY’S responsibility. And we suggest tennis players complain to the CITY as we are doing. That this needs to be resolved for everyone. We also suggest the tennis people join us to encourage the City to adopt a fair, open process for application and approval of these special use permits. It’s not fair if tennis has preference and pickleball is relegated to second class citizens and cannot be seriously considered for these great permits. System should be fair. We found we can share the courts and we demonstrated that to over 10,000 people as evidenced by our YouTube video and thousands more on the KUSI news. And probably many more people as this video is getting a lot of attention as was the purpose. When there is an injustice (5-years of a whole community beings ignored) sometimes shining a bright spotlight on it, is a great way to raise pubic awareness. As least that is our rationale. I hope that is clear.
there’s a small scale hot war in europe, a cold war between the planet’s major superpowers (tho this week there are chinese missiles flying near japan and taiwan), inflation is uncontrolled, the US economy is in or close to a recession, the murder rate and opiod deaths are soaring, our culture is rotting, the right and the left are warring, and you all are worried about pickleball vs tennis? the gods must be laughing.
Perhaps these are why this particular escape is popular. Reality is too frightening.
This made me laugh. Thank you for adding some perspective!
To the PB people who did this, although I doubt you could care less, but interrupting games, taking over courts, behaving disrespectfully towards folks there clearly demonstrates to others that you’re determined to push for what you want regardless of how you’re perceived. So DO NOT BE SURPRISED when tennis players’ negative perceptions of you as arrogant bullies is solidified. You’re far less likely to get what you want when you bully people. But whatever, you do you. See how it works for you.
P.S. one of my neighbors set up a pickleball court in his driveway. don’t any of you folks have one?
Pickleball-SD did disrupt the youth tennis camp. Stefan, you commented “we never saw the kids till 4:30pm”. Yes, you didn’t see them because, for their safety, they were kept outside of the tennis complex until parents and police protection arrived. My child said that her teacher left early to address the situation, thus her tennis instruction was sadly cut short. Also, the last-day-of-camp celebration was to take place at the clubhouse deck/bleachers and in the area your group invaded. One instructor did his best to conduct the ceremony outside. But by that time, the distraction already dampened the fun. It’s called cause and effect. Stefan, just because you didn’t see the effect, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Pickleball-SD knew that a youth tennis camp would be present but went ahead with the demonstration anyways. Whoever planned this stunt, did not think this through. Stefan you may think you didn’t interrupt anything, but from the children’s perspective, their camp was surely disrupted.
In the youtube video, Pickleball-SD edited out parts to make that mom look bad. I was there and witnessed the pickleball guy walk towards the children telling them (loudly) to “fight for your rights, freedom of speech…” How scary for a child to have someone approach them like that! That mom had every right to step in between and demand that guy to leave. Who wouldn’t be pissed if a big dude came at your kids like that!? Word of caution to everyone: Never approach a cub in a dangerous manner because mama bears will attack. You guys are definitely playing dirty by making that one-sided video. Now that poor mom and the kids are victims of cyberbullying. You could have at least blurred out their faces for their privacy. I never consented to having my kids recorded and uploaded by Pickleball-SD.
After continuing threats of wanting to take over the Peninsula Tennis Club, these 2 Pickleball guys give the sport a black eye by their predatory behavior. Using a loophole (technicality) as their ticket, these 2 guys and around 15 of their followers stormed Peninsula Tennis Club last Thursday after their drone flyover confirms the 6 eastern courts were at that time unused as the perfect time to exercise what they called the rights to public space. I guess they forgot a few details that will come to stick with them from that point forward. Apparently, they were unaware there was a kids summer camp at the west side courts run by the clubs director, Duncan Depew. As it turns out, the mother of two of the girls who were participating in the camp’s final day, which was also awards day, said all the kids missed out on due to the interruption. In an earlier comment, she described how they had to alter the ceremony as it was designed and how her girls felt cheated, disappointed and scared by what happened. This is because the director, Duncan had to deal with the unannounced Pickleball guys provocative publicity con, claiming they had a right to the public space while their contract had expired. If this were the case, logically, anyone with knowledge of the permit issue could just show up and utilize the TENNIS court space using them for whatever they saw fit. Just think of the limitless possibilities that thought conjures up. Nevermind the fact the courts were paid for and maintained by people for the purpose of playing tennis. If Parks & Rec sincerely wanted all comers to use the club for other activities they would place signage at the club to do so.
Which brings about the question, just because you can do something, does that make it the right thing to do? Of course not.
Here are the points.
1. This facility is called the Peninsula TENNIS Club.
2. Peninsula Tennis Club has operated in good standing with the City at no expense to taxpayers for 40 years.
3. The surfaces, nets, windscreens, lights, clubhouse, and court maintenance fees are paid for by tennis members and donations to keep the club going. Again, at no cost to taxpayers.
4. In an effort to gain an upper hand at taking over the facility, these 2 specific pickleball guys recently filed a complaint with the City attorney about the manner in which the club and their teaching pros are paid.. So when you file a complaint like this, and then brag about it in a newspaper article and on a radio show telling the world how corrupt the pros and operators of Peninsula Tennis Club are, what sort of reception did you expect? Complaining to the cops that a tennis club member gave not 1 but 2 fingers (I’m pretty sure if that guy had 3 hands he’d have given you another finger) as you took the court they had reservations for. Additionally he says, let’s keep it civil because kids are present. Afterwards, in their comments in the OB rag article they accuse the tennis players of using the kids as props after they created the situation the teacher of the kids camp had to stop and deal with. This comments goes to show the utter lack of self awareness and understanding cause and effect.
5. In January of 2022 in a letter addressed to San Diego tennis leadership they said the following. ” If you give us Robb (Peninsula Tennis Club), we can pretty much guarantee the rest of San Diego tennis courts will be left alone.”
6. Several months afterwards, they warned “if they didn’t get the Peninsula Tennis Club courts they would pursue acquiring them indefinitely”.
7. They and their followers say they want to share and compromise, yet their only satisfaction as a compromise is a takeover of this particular Club. Reasoned by them, that Club court utilization doesn’t meet their standards and there are 550 public tennis courts in San Diego. And, the members can just go to other tennis facilities to play and in time will get over it. Change is hard but people move on they say. They don’t mention the fact that 400 of those tennis courts are on school district and college campus property and not open to the public.
8. They have hundreds of hours of drone footage which they claim shows a low percentage of court usage. (BTW, did you know how much trouble you could get yourself into for doing drone flyovers at these facilities)? However, for starters they don’t take into account the Peninsula Tennis Club opens at 8 am yet their flyovers begin at 6 am. They also base their court usage an hour after the club is closed. In addition, as part of their SUP contract PTC must allow 20% of their courts available to public walk-on usage which is not accounted for in the percentage of use.
9. The 2 pickleball guys originally claimed they have roots as USTA members and are also big tennis fans as if to validate their concerns and understanding of the tennis community. Yet no one in the USTA can find any record of their history as USTA members. They also claim they work at Barnes Tennis Center, which I know for a fact they do not. In addition they claim to be “pickleball pros”, and I don’t know what the term pro means in the world of pickleball but the bar must be fairly low to make that claim as they don’t come up as such when you Google them. Naturally they claim these things to give people the impression they have a level of credibility people will assume is true because they say so. But if you start with the lies about who they are and go from there you’ll see a consistent narrative of deceit right on down to their faux staged takeover. And for all the noise they’ve made at the expense of the tennis community they’ve accomplished nothing but given both sports negative press because they are clearly in this for themselves and not the community of San Diego and pickleball as they claim. Why else would they not link up with other investors to build their own facility? Clearly San Diego does lag behind in offering pickleball facilities relative to much of the rest of the country. But how many other cities are they comparing San Diego to which have property values this high? Which is the #1 reason the tennis community has lost over 100 courts the past several decades to housing developers. Even so, parks and rec has a task force specifically dedicated for pickleball which by the way though not dedicated, court lining has been provided to many communities to play until more robust facilities can be built.
10. They claim to be fans of tennis but they have gone to great lengths to disparage the sport of tennis saying tennis is dying when it has grown over 25%. They have fostered a culture of followers who maintain a vocal hatred and dislike for tennis in an increasingly hostile manner. Take a look at the comments sections from their YouTube video and the OB rag to get the idea of just how much they dislike tennis and why pickleball is better and so on.
11. They call the tennis community entitled and elitist. First of all, when it comes to entitlement, the actions taken thus far by these pickleball guys as it relates to taking over tennis courts is the greatest act of entitlement I’ve ever witnessed. Secondly, the public tennis court facilities in San Diego are the furthest thing you’ll find from elitist. Since moving here in 1977 I’ve utilized a great variety of San Diego parks and Rec public sports facilities including softball, basketball, racquetball, badminton, golf, flag football and of course tennis. All of them are affordable options to private facilities and Peninsula Tennis Club is one of the most affordable of all. How you can frame the public tennis facilities as elitist is comical.
12. These 2 guys said they have 2.5 million of their life savings to put towards a centralized pickleball facility. After nearly 5 years of effort they conclude the ONLY POSSIBLE location it could be done is at Peninsula Tennis Club. So no matter what the reasons the tennis community and parks and rec have told them the facility is not available which includes 500 plus members, 1,100 users 11 league teams, Point Loma High School boys AND girls tennis teams, Warren Walker middle school usage host to USTA local tournaments, host to 30 clinics and kids summer tennis camps and court usage for national and sectional overflow tournaments. This they say is because property in San Diego is too expensive to build their own facility. Join the club, tennis has grown around 25% and is more popular now than anytime since the 1970’s. We have been trying to find more tennis courts with which to meet the demand ourselves.
13. When confronted with the question about taking responsibility for their actions that day, they shrug off any remorse or sympathy for anyone they hurt in the process. Instead, they robotically reply how the police reassured them of their right to be there. And now proclaim themselves to be demonstrators
exercising their rights. Bringing this up with 10,000 views will make people aware, and of course the end justifies the means.
14. Parks and Rec offered them an area to build 14 pickleball courts at Robb Field but they turned it down saying it wasn’t fast enough because he’s from New York and he wants it now. That attitude didn’t work for him in New York any better than it is here in San Diego. Every sports facility in in San Diego especially the tennis facilities took 5-10 years to complete. So their answer is to gain public sympathy to their cause by making tennis the selfish villain which hoards underutilized court space.
The tennis community and Peninsula Tennis Club members are united in preserving the club as a tennis facility. We support the growth of all racquet sports but not at the cost of destroying existing healthy, loved and well utilized facilities which hundreds of players of all ages call their second home.
Hello John & OB Rag readers,
The fact that we are shedding light on some uncomfortable things does that mean we caused them. They already were the case, it’s just that now the general public are starting to be informed and be upset about it. Here are some points to consider:
1- Facts: Tennis has 12 public facilities in City of SD. PB has zero. Tennis has 550 permanent courts on public, city owned property. Pickleball has ZERO. Tennis has a 550 room mansion, and complains that some of its rooms are not up to snuff or available all of the time. And tournaments at Barnes that mostly serve out of town patrons need overflow courts at PTC and elsewhere. Pickleball is HOMELESS. We have nothing. We just want 1 home! The permit system is broken. We should be able to compete for these same permits in an open and fair process.
2- Tennis has disparaged PB saying it cheapens tennis, that we are invaders. That we should play on cracked sidewalks, alleys, and parking lots, and school playgrounds on weekends, and oh bring your own nets, chalk, for lines and tape. Really? This type of talk has led to more community division, not the fact that people are beginning to speak up about what is right, and fair process.
3- PTC pays no RENT. Taxpayers built these courts. Taxpayers subsidize these valuable park properties. With a permit we would serve a much greater proportion of the local community and beautify the entire park. And be completely transparent to the public publishing player visits each month.
4- We would add tons of improvements to Robb Field (not just the courts) if given a fair chance to compete and win a permit. Decisions should be based on FACTS and DATA, not on hearsay and rumor.
5- We provided the community with hundreds of hours (check out our website) of aerial footage of two of the clubs in question and have recently been provided months of courts logs from tennis players proving beyond doubt what we have been saying for the past 2 years. Tennis courts are mostly empty in the Ocean Beach areas. This club and the surrounding 3 clubs only use on average 25% of their available courts space and even during prime time, just 50%. They could consolidate one club and if so, instead of 550 tennis courts, they would have 540. And no tennis players would be deprived of playing their sport, yet thousands of pickeball folks would be served every week.
6- FACT: Tennis clubs REFUSE to release any court data or annual MINUTES. Tennis leaders tout their growth during pandemic years (last 2 years) when all outdoor sports grew tremendously. But if you look at the previous 10 years (2010-2019) tennis participation declined by 6%. From 18.7M in 2010 to 17.7M at the end of 2019. See leading tennis marketing report! http://www.tennisindustrymag.com/issues/202109/industry-research.pdf
7- Tennis leaders said the courts are used 80-90% of the time most days of the week. They said we are LYING to the public. That is what motivated us to expose this fallacy with data and facts of which the tennis community STILL refuses to release its MINUTES and COURT LOGS! Where is the transparency to the public? Tennis leaders are criticizing us for trying to deliver more objective data and facts to the community so that the public can make informed decisions.
8- Parks and Recreation NEVER offered us 14 courts. Complete fabrication. NEVER! If they did we would have floated the idea to the 50,000 person pickleball community we are in contact with.
9- Both of us have played numerous USTA events growing up and I was a member at SDTRC and a playing partner for top juniors. We both have played and won professional pickleball tournaments and prize money around the country. We have national industry contacts and experience that will come in valuable when it comes to crafting SanDiego First pickleball facility.
In summary, we just want a fair chance to compete for these very favorable special use permits that exist. With 50-70% of tennis players playing pickleball, 90% of those people support our proposal. PTC has not had a valid permit in almost 4 years. We should have a right to compete on an equal basis. Tennis did not build these courts and taxpayers subsidize the property. This is the publics choice, not a few out tennis leaders that we believe are out of touch.
In time, we hope pickleball will do what it does best, bring the entire community together. We have faith!
John,
PTC is registered as Non-profit. Why don’t you disclose your financials and put to bed one of talking points from pickleball? All non profits do this.
At the end of the day this is all about MONEY! PTC has a sweetheart deal from the city that has generated significant amounts of money over 4o years. Every year, PTC generates hundreds of thousands of dollars. With that kind of money, PTC should be a pristine facility like other public tennis clubs like Barnes and Balboa Tennis Club . The beautiful condition of those public tennis clubs explains why they keep their courts and facility full and vibrant compared to the mediocre condition of PTC. Instead, all that money paid by members (kids and their parents) is shared by a handful of insider people and a miniscule amount is put back into the club. This why you took down your non-profit board meeting minutes when the public started to probe.
I just looked at the PTC website. The week of 8/14-8/20 shows clinics every day and sometimes two on one day. Anywhere from 15 to 48 people booked on each different day. Your website says $20 per person for clinics and $25 for non-members. This pencils out to $4060 in a week. Extrapolate this out over a year and it is over $200,000 on just 1/2 of your courts! This amount does not include private lessons that are done daily/weekly. It does not include yearly memberships paid by the public. It does not includes court fees of $5 per person per hour. If your courts are as full as you say, that alone adds up to a another substantial amount of money. So open your “non-profit” books and show where all the goes.
I added up a full month and got to about $25,000 for clinics alone, then one must add lessons and youth camps. This club generates at least 500,000 a year and declares NONE of that against the non-profit. In other words, 90% of the revenue generated on this property we estimate is coming in cash to mgt/instructors and not declared as part of the non-profit.
On July 28th, I see 11 hours of private at $60 an hour or $660. I see 6 courts of clinics where Peninsula says they get 30 folks on average at $20-$25 per person. That’s about $650 more. I see an Ed Collins youth camp on 4 courts from 9-4:30 with about 16 people at $100 a day thats another $1,600. I see 6 hours of other types of instruction. Thats about $360 ($60 an hour) and I see Duncans camp with 6.5 hours on 2 courts thats about $330. Adding all that instruction up, that’s $3,600 for just one summer day. Instruction only. Where is that $3,600 reported. Not on the 990 and not on the records and books that the City has. We did a public records request. Peninsula does not claim a single dollar for lessons, clinics and camps. And the mgt at Peninsula does have a sublease or rights to run a business, no less a FOR PROFIT business out of the the property.
This thing stinks to high heaven. Cheating the community by pretending to run a non-profit, when 90% of the money flows through the for-profit individuals that manage this club. That’s not right. And this has NOTHING to do with employees vs IC’s.
And worst/best of all the CITY knows this is occurring and I believe this is why the tennis clubs are not able to get new SUP’s. Because the City knows this club and others have been cheating the public, running essentially for profit operations when they promised the public they would be non-profit and transparent with their revenues as required by the expired permit.
Okay Stefan, you’ve had your say and your accusations of “cheating” are on the record. Plus you don’t need to overwhelm every commenter with your narrative. Don’t wear out your welcome, dude.
I pay for those tennis lessons, youth clinics and summer camps for my kids and let me tell you, it is WAAAY cheaper than what I pay for their dance and gymnastics classes. They’ve been learning how to play tennis there for about 2 years now and have become really good at it. I don’t know much about tennis, but from the results I see, those instructors are top notch and I highly recommend them! Just because the club is non-profit, should the instructors be working for free?? I don’t feel cheated at all. I feel like I’m getting an awesome deal in fact!!
And from all those numbers you are spewing out, it sounds to me like the club isn’t being underutilized.
John,
You point out that you have utilized many of the Parks and Rec public sports facilities in San Diego since 1977. You named softball, baske, racquetball, badminton, golf, flag football, of course tennis as all being available to you at public facilities. Tell me pickleball is available at a public facility in San Diego. It’s not! To play at a dedicated public facility, I drive to Carlsbad, Chula Vista, Santee, or Lakeside to name a few. That is why dedicated public courts are needed.
Then find a place and build one. No one is trying to deny you that. There is an obvious need for Pickleball in San Diego, you still don’t have a right to take space from an established club to get yours? Chick-fil-A can’t kick Burger King out just because McDonalds is across the street and you can get a burger over there if you want one, chicken is moving in.
You guys also claim you want a “centralized” location, OB is not a central location in SD city limits. Try Kearny Mesa, it is much more centralized than PTC.
John Broderick,
Are you going to address the issue hundreds of thousands of dollars that flows through PTC instructors but not your non-profit tennis club that is the permit holder…and is not reported? Again, open your books and debunk one of our talking points. I don’t think you can.
Court logs are accurate. Camp ended at 4:30pm. I spoke to Ed Collins, the head pro for 3 minutes at 3:10pm to inform him what was going on and we had a cordial conversation. He said ok, he had to get back to the camp on the other bank of tennis courts (out of earshot and eyeshot from the one court we were on) and left. He said he had one more hour left. After he left some tennis players came in and gave me the finger without a word of conversation. Tennis court went from zero used to two used and plenty space between us. Then, one tennis guy kept picking up our lines and trying to disassemble our court. One stood on the court as we were playing and tried to obstruct play and others just made snide remarks at us. They did leave us alone to play for about an hour. There was no violence, no threat of violence, nothing even remotely close. Some conversation but more listening on our part and recording. Some rude behavior from tennis folks yeah and one angry, over the top lady demanding we all leave her tennis courts. Extreme overreaction. After tennis leaders try to brainwash the kids we were bad people, yeah one guy said something not ideal. Not threatening…just question authority…fight for your rights. There was no threat. Two dumb lines. And said without anger or frustration. Just said in response to we are bad people. Tennis tried to bully us, flipping us off and telling us to leave. Plus the police were already there and within minutes came outside to tell all of us, that they would not kick us off the courts and affirmed our right to be there. When the adults left there was one 16 year old tennis kid-adult saying rude things trying to provoke something between clubhouse and parking lot. Where was his mother? Outside of that one kid, the kids were quiet and respectful. No issues there. The adults…not so much. PS Trophy ceremony went on for kids at 4:45pm. We have that on video too. Only reason that was delayed were police were busy talking to us as a group. And please know, if any tennis person came over and asked me to move for couple of minutes to take a picture, we would have. Believe it or not we get along with most folks on all sides. No one asked. I didn’t hear about this till the next day. I am proud through all of the harassment, we kept calm and cool. And did NOT escalate anything. We tampered things down when folks did get a little heated. Our goal was to demonstrate that we had a right to share courts with tennis and educate the public to that fact. That we are all equal and have a right to public park space. I feel bad for this lady that lost control over a nothing event. I am sure she regrets it. At least I hope so.
my coach duncan left us to deal with you guys. he also wasn’t able to do the ceremony at the end. bruh why are you recording us? i didn’t consent to have a creepy man record me and put me on the internet
Who am I conversing with? We always give our real names here, and on video. Forgive me, but it’s hard to take you seriously when you do not identify yourself. Would you give a name please?
We checked with the City long ago and again recently. Video recording at public parks (City property) is allowed. There is no expectation of privacy on public space. Video not only allowed, but encouraged when its newsworthy events and or police related events. To make sure everyone is being fair and honest.
We purely documented what happened for the public to decide.
Wow lots of nastiness going on. Maybe cameras should be installed at this facility.
There’s a solution to all of this: find land, secure donations, build pickle ball facility. I saw it done at my mom’s community in Ohio. No tennis courts were “converted” or “borrowed” and (as far as I could see when I was there) everyone was perfectly content playing either or both sports, without disruption or infighting. Both sports are popular enough in SoCal that they need their own facilities.
This is not Ohio. Real estate is very very expensive in San Diego. There is a housing shortage and ever viable piece of land is is prioritized for housing because it is scarce. Just like public park space and facilities are scarce for a growing population. Which is the main reason that ALL public courts should be reviewed to make sure that they are utilization is maximized. Utilization at PTC is not maximized.
Pickleball players are being persecuted against. We should have the same rights as tennis to compete for valuable City permits. And serving a population 10 times greater than the current tennis facility does ought to be considered in a fair and open process. Instead of rushing temporary permits through in the middle of the night, without public discussion, and after almost four years of NOT being one for that space.
The tennis cartel continues to try and drag us down a rabbit hole using a “Red Herring” here. Switching the subject is a fallacy. Let’s please stay on point, which is more pickleball courts. Thank you.
The other false choice, is tennis gaslighting the issue, saying they will lay more cement down at Robb or somewhere else and they will manage the pickleball facility or leave it unmanaged. Only problem outside of trusting tennis to control tennis’ destiny is that a project like this would take 5-10 years if it’s even approved. Parks said they would not allocate money for such a project.
I believe this is just a stall tactic to keep current tennis facilities exactly the way they are now.
The other false choice, is tennis gaslighting the issue, saying they will lay more cement down at Robb or somewhere else and they will manage the pickleball facility or leave it unmanaged. Only problem outside of trusting tennis to control pickleballs’ destiny is that a project like this would take 5-10 years if it’s even approved. Parks said they would not allocate money for such a project.
I believe this is just a stall tactic to keep current tennis facilities exactly the way they are now.
Pickelball gaining popularity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smw4ekw089U
It starting to sound like Peninsula Tennis Club needs to get with the City, expand THEIR club by adding Pickleball courts (in addition to leaving the existing tennis courts alone), charging membership fees, and cutting these anarchists out of the equation. Now there is a win-win.
yes, then stefan and company could go instruct at peninsula and pocket all the cash payments too and go on about their day. win win
Please don’t make that assumption. Mike and Stefan are just trying to get designated Pickleball courts ANYWHERE in San Diego. It’s been YEARS now with NO change. Not ONE designated court in ALL of San Diego. San Diego is missing out. The Pickleball community would appreciate bread crumbs at this point. One tennis court is FOUR Pickleball courts. They would be utilized all day/night. From early risers, seniors, students to people who want to play after work. SHARE! Please don’t make us wait 5 or more years to find and build a site. Can we somehow do both? San Diego is the ideal place for a Pickleball facility. Look what they built at Indian Wells. If we had something like that here in San Diego imagine the tourism and revenue for the city of San Diego all year long! But more importantly… now! We want to play now and there is nothing while countless tennis courts are underutilized or empty. Telling someone to play in their driveway is a joke and it’s not funny.
This is a very reasonable comment folks, pay attention.
Well said Allison! How sad is it that the community is to the point they are willing to acept breadcrumbs? I have spoken to my councilmember Raul Campllio in person twice and his staff through many email exchanges. Althugh they say the agree conceptually that we need a dedicated pickleball facility, they have not been the advocate they have promised to be. For example, on Campillo’s instagram page, they were they were bragging that it was a win that at a local park (Murray Ridge Park) that they just had the basketball and lone tennis court resurfaced and that the tennis court was co-striped for pickleball. Although this is no where near what we want and and deserve, I drove there today to take a look. The surface was nice and there were pickleball courts striped on each side of the net for two courts total. There are no nets there so I would need to buy ($150) bring my own net. Can you imagine if tennis player had to bring their ownnets? The kicker is that the court was taken by a tennis instructor (paid I assume) and his student and mom. So imagine if I bought TWO nets, showed up with 7 other friends to play on both courts…and there was tennis lessons going on? Not to mention that this is a neighborhood park on a cul de sac in a dense neighborhood with minimal parking. Courts sprinkled through the city is not the answer. We need a dedicated central pickleball facility!