Pickleball players buck crackdown
Noise on forbidden courts in wealthy area sends message to city
The pickleball courts at Presidio Wall playground, a stretch of green and blue asphalt in one of San Francisco’s toniest neighborhoods, certainly don’t look as if they would be the site of civil disobedience.
But in the two weeks since the city’s Recreation and Park Department hung “Tennis Only” signs over two courts as its latest maneuver in a monthslong duel over court space, that’s what has happened. As a form of protest, pickleball players have carried nets onto the forbidden courts when tennis players aren’t around, their plastic thwacks and pops sending an unmistakable message to San Francisco officials.
“We won’t go without a fight,” said Suzy Safdie, a Merced Heights resident and Presidio Wall regular. “What’s been going on here isn’t right, and we need to make ourselves heard.”
Few doubt that pickleball should rank far behind homelessness and the fentanyl crisis on city officials’ priority list. But in disrupting one of San Francisco’s biggest pickleball hubs because a small number of wealthy neighbors complained about the noise, the park commission spotlighted what critics call preferential treatment for the rich.
For six months, several Presidio Heights residents — including one with a pickleball court in her backyard — tried to suspend pickleball at Presidio Wall by arguing that the sound of pickleball paddles hurt home values, local wildlife and residents’ mental well-being. San Francisco’s booming pickleball community sees the situation differently.
More than two years ago, Presidio Wall, a scenic spot nestled between cypress trees and stately mansions, became the city’s premier gathering place for America’s fastest-growing sport after flooding shut down courts elsewhere in the city. Now pickleball enthusiasts argue that the park department is bowing to San Francisco’s tennis players and a few deep-pocketed residents.
In August, Holly Peterson — the wife of wealthy tech mogul Karl Peterson and the owner of that backyard pickleball court — asked San Francisco to stop pickleball at Presidio Wall until a full environ
“We won’t go without a fight. What’s been going on here isn’t right, and we need to make ourselves heard.” Suzy Safdie, a Merced Heights resident and regular pickleball player at Presidio Wall playground
mental study could be completed on how the sport affects everything from wildlife to parking.
At a park department meeting that month, Holly Peterson said she had “personally suffered irreversible damage” from the near-constant thwacking outside her home, adding that she’s “very frustrated” with the situation.
In the fall, Peterson and some of her neighbors hired an acoustics firm for an extensive noise assessment. It found that the courts’ pickleball matches produced a sound akin decibelwise to a hair dryer.
Pickleball players said they heard little more from the city about the issue until mid-January, when Recreation and Park announced plans to return six of Presidio Wall’s 12 pickleball courts to their original use as tennis courts. (Two tennis courts have enough space for six pickleball courts.) What followed served as the ultimate testament to the pickleball community’s fervor.
A Change.org petition to save the courts received about 1,500 signatures in its first week. A 50person protest drew some pickleball players holding “MORE PICKLEBALL; Less Fentanyl” signs. In a heated City Hall meeting, pickleball players reportedly laughed when Recreation and Park general manager Phil Ginsburg suggested that the sound levels were harming neighbors’ mental health.
“It’s a cause I’m willing to fight for,” Mary Hickey, a pickleball instructor who helped organize the protest, said this week. “It’s more the hypocrisy and ridiculousness of the super elite. … The elite get things that the rest of us don’t.”
However, Recreation and Park officials say that the Presidio Wall courts were supposed to be a temporary solution to accommodate pickleball demand until eight courts at the Sunset District’s Carl Larsen Park were completed in December. According to the city, San Francisco’s number of courts grew seven-fold over the past five-plus years, from 12 playing surfaces in 2018 to 87 today.
Recreation and Park spokesperson Tamara Aparton said in a statement that all players should “take a breath and remember to ‘love all’ ” as “we try to get us all out of this pickle by rallying for more recreation spaces.” Aparton also stressed that the city will make up for the loss at Presidio Wall by opening six new pickleball courts this spring at Moscone Park Playground, a nine-minute drive away.
Pickleball supporters contend that many of the city’s newer pickleball surfaces are merely tennis courts with difficult-tosee pickleball lines and no pickleball nets. This forced pickleball players to supply their own rolling nets, which allowed them to easily start matches when tennis players were finished.
Bill Lafferty, a retired firefighter who helps with pickleball net maintenance, said the city now requires permits for rolling pickleball nets. But when he was unable to find anywhere online to obtain such a permit, the park department couldn’t provide information on getting one.
“They’re being bullies,” Lafferty said. “They have the pulpit, and they can do it.”
Aparton said Recreation and Park requires a permit only for leaving rolling nets on park property, not for using them and removing them after matches. Though she called such requests “pretty uncommon,” she said permit requests can be made by email or on the department’s website.
Hickey and others have presented the city with various options, such as noise-canceling paddles and sound-absorbing curtains, to help reduce the decibel level. Still, Recreation and Park insists on keeping up the “Tennis Only” signs on the two courts.
Safdie worries that pickleball players will encounter familiar issues on the new courts at Moscone Park. In addition to limited parking, Moscone’s courts are located next to a library — a likely recipe for more noise complaints.
“I can’t help but think that we’ll eventually get kicked off those courts, too,” Safdie said. “It’d save everyone a lot of hassle and money if they just made Presidio Wall a pickleball-only facility.”
Hundreds of feet south of Presidio Wall’s courts sits Holly Peterson’s eight-bedroom mansion on Jackson Street. Designed more than 100 years ago by Hearst Castle architect Julia Morgan, the estate boasts a karaoke room with disco balls, a butler’s pantry with a wine refrigerator cabinet, sweeping views of San Francisco Bay and that now infamous pickleball court.
Yet, more than eight months after it was first listed for $36 million, the 11,300-square-foot, Tudor-style house remains on the market — at $29 million. Steven Mavromihalis, the home’s listing agent, attributed that protracted timeline to the noise of nearby Presidio Wall and the negative media attention surrounding Peterson’s petition to suspend pickleball there.
“Whether it’s a $300-a-month studio or a $30 million home, nobody wants to live next to something that’s thousands of thwacks a day, every day, seven days a week from sunup to sunset,” said Mavromihalis, whose client didn’t respond to an interview request.
Lisa Shaw, a semiretired tech salesperson, struggles to feel much sympathy for the Petersons. She has found a much needed sense of community at Presidio Wall, where she spends roughly 15 hours a week playing pickleball.
“It does feel like an attack on our community,” Shaw said of the “Tennis Only” signs. “We’ve got a good thing going here. Instead of shutting it down, (Recreation and Park) should be celebrating it.”