A ritzy Long Island town has temporarily banned well-heeled residents from building pickleball courts on their properties over concerns of annoyingly loud popping sounds from the sport.
Glen Glove officials placed a three-month moratorium on any new pickleball courts as officials plan to create new laws regulating the noisy facilities while wealthy residents flood the city with requests for permits.
“We would just like a little time,” Glen Cove Mayor Pamela Panzenbeck said when pressed by residents over the moratorium at a City Council meeting last week.
“Pickleball courts, they’re not like tennis courts, they create a lot of noise and bother — it’s a hard ball, it makes a very loud sound, not like a tennis ball,” the mayor added.
Pickleball maniacs pushed back and said they were being unfairly targeted, with locals pointing out basketball courts produce steady noise from dribbling the ball and hitting the metal rim.
But Panzenbeck emphasized the legislation is only a temporary pause while the city assesses the situation to determine guidelines for new courts. There’s been an influx of requests from deep-pocketed residents who want to build courts on their own properties.
“In communities where people have put them in their backyards, a lot of people are not happy,” the mayor said.
The popularity of pickleball, an easy-on-the body hybrid of badminton and tennis, has been the fastest-growing sport in the country for the last five years, according to data from AAA.
Between 20 to 48 million Americans play pickleball — which is nearly 19% of American adults, at least — according to varying estimates from The Association of Pickleball Professionals and the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.
But the noisy game has drawn ire across the country as people who live near the courts say keep it down.
Residents across the bridge in Ridgewood, New Jersey — just about an hour away from Glen Cove — have been complaining for years about the “noise pollution” they said is caused by the sound of the hard plastic balls hitting paddles.
“It sounds like somebody shooting an AK,” Carole Kling, who invested $38,000 to soundproof her house with hurricane force windows to escape the noise from her neighborhood pickleball court, previously told The Post.
Similar complaints have been echoed around the country, with California’s wealthy Carmel City being the first in the state to permanently ban residents from playing the sport anywhere within city limits back in November of last year.
But players seem to have little sympathy over the noise the game produces.
“Pickleball is a gift to us,” Joanne Archer, 74, told The Post.