Vienna residents near Glyndon Park have put their collective foot down when it comes to the smacking and popping of pickleball games reverberating seven days a week from the park’s tennis courts.
Following a series of noise complaints from residents of the homes encircling the park, the Vienna Town Council voted Monday to restrict what was once weekly court availability for pickleball players to specific hours on three days a week.
Officially, pickleball players will be able to access the courts, beginning March 1, on Mondays and Wednesdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., according to council legislation. Additional use of the park’s two courts will be reserved for tennis.
“The Parks and Recreation Department has received numerous concerns and complaints from residents regarding pickleball at Glyndon Park,” Department of Parks and Recreation Director Leslie Herman told the town council Monday, WTOP reports.
“The most recent complaint from the Glyndon Park neighbors is the noise from pickleball has ruined the livability of their neighborhood and significantly decreased the value of their homes.”
FFXNow first reported that the Vienna Town Council would take up the noise ordinance.
The sport’s smaller court boundaries and use of mobile nets have allowed pickleball players at Glyndon Park — with some help from the Vienna Pickleball Club — to repurpose the site’s two tennis courts into a space that can host four pickleball matches at the same time.
The added games, which residents say have been running 12 hours a day, seven days a week, created an “unbearable” symphony of “constant popping,” one neighboring resident wrote in an October survey.
“[It’s] borderline torture,” the individual said. “We cannot use our outdoor space anymore due to pickleball and cannot open our windows.”
Players of the rapidly blossoming sport, however, argue that the activity does not violate the town’s noise ordinance.
“We can’t make less noise, although there are quieter pickleball paddles, and we encourage people to buy the quieter ones,” Vienna Pickleball Club member Kyle Scott told WTOP. “But there are noise ordinances in this town, the same for a leaf blower as they are for a lawn mower, as they are for a guy working on a roof, as they are for pickleball … this is a public park, a public park should be used.”
Vienna Mayor Linda Colbert acknowledged that the outcome of the vote is unlikely to leave anyone “a hundred percent thrilled.”
“But it is in my mind a compromise,” Colbert said, according to FFXNow.
Town council members are reportedly looking for additional courts that can accommodate the sport’s surge of participants.
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