Letter to Editor: Who Wins With Pickleball Courts at 18th Street?

To The Editor: Lines for five crude Pickleball courts are painted on asphalt beside the Ocean City Intermediate School. Who wins with Pickleball courts at 18th Street? Ocean City merchants win! Pickleball has demonstrated that it brings a lot of people “over the bridge” and these are adults who spend money in our town. Courts in other locations will make it too easy for players to avoid our shopping/restaurant district. Ocean City youth and families win! Pickleball is a sport that all ages can play together. 18^th Street is a central location easily accessible to all our residents and visitors, which means more play and healthier living for everyone. Ocean City hotels win! The 18^th Street site could be a tournament-class facility and Pickleball tournaments would bring overnight visitors to our town. Pickleball community wins! Pickleball is unique in that it is a very social sport. During organized play, players change partners and interact with different people every game. The eight proposed courts plus the five existing “temporary” courts all in the same location would give our city a very desirable facility. Hardcourt tennis community wins! According to the tennis court reservation records maintained by the city, a large majority of our tennis players prefer to play on the hard courts. Converting two of the unused turf courts to Pickleball courts would not affect the current 13 hard courts and would give more people the opportunity to play both sports. Turf tennis community wins! According to the tennis court reservation records maintained by the city, the 34th Street courts are by far the busiest courts. At 5^th Street, there were at least two turf courts sitting empty except for 7 hours in all of July and August of 2015 combined and even more court time open at 18^th Street. The current turf courts at 18^th Street are in very poor condition. If the proposed upgrade includes new turf on four of the courts at this location, this would raise the total of top condition turf courts from 5 to 9. Tax Payers Win! Given the wages paid to the attendants and their supervisors, tennis brings very little if any money into the city’s coffers and because Pickleball is run as a pick-up game like our basketball and beach volleyball courts, players are not charged to play. However, it costs much less to color coat a court for pickleball than to install new artificial turf for turf tennis courts. Don Hepner Ocean City, NJ