When lawmaking goes too far Options

[jwttu]

This is just utterly stupid. And people wonder why childhood obesity is rising.

UP council presses for ban on hoops

Residents slam proposal aimed at basketball goals

08:43 PM CDT on Wednesday, August 2, 2006

By KRISTEN HOLLAND / The Dallas Morning News

UNIVERSITY PARK – Hoops could be shot down in this wealthy community thanks to a proposed ordinance banning basketball goals in front yards.

The reason? To some city officials, they don't look too good.

That's the basis of a proposed University Park ordinance prohibiting portable and permanent basketball hoops. On Tuesday, council members postponed a decision on the ordinance until their Aug. 22 meeting so revisions could be made, said City Manager Bob Livingston.

Under the proposal, violators could be fined up to $2,000 a day.

Ridiculous. Silly. Stupid. Those are just a few comments hurled at the proposed law by homeowners with basketball goals.

Kimberley Sone said she doesn't have anywhere else to put her family's basketball goal.

"This is my driveway, and that's where it would be," Mrs. Sone said, looking out her front door toward the hoop. "I don't have a garage. Our back yards are too small to play in."

"Not everyone likes soccer," she added. "Some like basketball."

The ordinance the Planning and Zoning Commission and city staff originally recommended would have allowed residents to keep portable basketball goals in their front yards for up to 30 days a year. Council members wanted none of that, though.

They went back and forth for about 15 minutes at their Tuesday meeting on whether to allow swings, soccer goals and basketball goals in front yards at all. Some wanted to allow them certain months of the year, others only during daylight hours.

Portable soccer goals and badminton nets were deemed allowable because they could be moved inside every night. So were one-seat swings, provided they don't swing into the street.

Trampolines and basketball goals weren't as lucky.

"It's just not as pleasing to the eye," Mayor Blackie Holmes said about the goals.

The ordinance would probably not keep kids from playing basketball outside.

Residents with alley access or driveways that extend behind their homes can move the basketball goals there.

And kids can play in nearby Highland Park whenever they want. Susan Millet, who lives a block south of Mrs. Sone, but in Highland Park, said children from all over play basketball in her front yard because it's safer than playing in the alleys. Highland Park doesn't regulate basketball goals.

Mrs. Millet said so many kids show up that she and her husband put up a chain net because they were going through too many mesh ones.

Jack Campbell, 12, was stunned to hear that he may not be able to use his basketball goal anymore.

The Highland Park Middle School student spends an hour or two a day shooting hoops in front of his family's University Park home. He said he likes playing there because it's easier to start pickup games than if he was shooting hoops in the back yard.

Big sister Kate, 14, said, "Are you serious?" when told about the proposed ordinance.

She said there isn't anywhere else to put the hefty black-bottomed stand. "We have a really big back yard, but it's all grass," she said.

Anne Campbell, Jack and Kate's mom, said she has no clue what the family would do with the goal, which was a Christmas present for Jack several years ago. She said kids up and down the block use it.

"We're not going to put a full-regulation basketball court in our back yard," Mrs. Campbell said. "Our neighbor did that. This is more, kind of, for play."

Mr. Holmes had little sympathy.

"They're going to have to find somewhere else to play basketball," he said.