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The tennis and pickleball courts in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea. [New Pelican]<\/p>\nThe tennis and pickleball courts in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea. [New Pelican]<\/p>\n
By John Hayden | New Pelican Writer<\/p>\n
LBTS \u2013 Pickleball players versus tennis players. Call it an athletic version of West Side Story, as residents of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea are sniping at each other over who gets which courts when.<\/p>\n
During the town commission meeting on Jan. 27, residents Jill and Steve Diller took to the podium to warn of tensions simmering just below the surface. They concluded with a dire prediction: \u201cI fear that sooner or later there\u2019s gonna be some kind of harm done to somebody. It\u2019s that heated,\u201d Steve said.<\/p>\n
The courts are at Friedt Park behind town hall. Rules are designed to try to accommodate everyone but pickleball players say they are being bullied by the tennis players. The Dillers say signs stating the guidelines are out of date. Both courts are lined for tennis but only one has pickleball markings. Neither have a regulation pickleball net.<\/p>\n
Jill Diller says the real conflict comes when people show up. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of confusion about how many players you can have on the court at any one time. When we come in with only two or three players, we\u2019re getting kicked off with people saying we don\u2019t have enough players to occupy the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Steve Diller, \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of animosity that occurs. There\u2019s a lot of disrespect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The physical sign only references tennis. The webpage on the town\u2019s site is much more specific, addressing both sports, length of play, and requiring all players to be present to use the facilities.<\/p>\n
In addition to an updated sign, the Dillers are asking for better recognition of pickleball rights. \u201cWe pay as much for (access) as they do and we\u2019re getting the brunt of their animosity,\u201d Jill Diller said.<\/p>\n
As a general rule, commissioners don\u2019t respond to public comments from the dais. However, Town Manager Ken Rubach was able to shed some light on the history of the courts, saying a compromise was reached several years ago regarding striping and other issues.<\/p>\n
Mayor Edmund Malkoon said it\u2019s important for everyone to have equal opportunity. \u201cIt\u2019s gotta be fair for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner John Graziano also called for civility. \u201cYou should be equivalent to the tennis players and the tennis players should provide the right etiquette for you and you should provide the right etiquette for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rubach said his office will look into updating the sign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tennis and pickleball courts in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea. [New Pelican] By John Hayden | New Pelican Writer LBTS \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-454298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}