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Parks board recommends sale of beer at golf course
The Nevada Parks Board voted 5-1 during their April 2008 meeting to recommend that the Nevada City Council allow the sale and consumption of beer at the Frank E. Peters Municipal Golf Course to help stem the $100,000 to $150,000 deficit at the course and to address the problem of golfers ignoring the ban on consumption of alcohol at the course.
When the city council finally considered the matter in August 2008, the council passed the measure 3-2 on its first reading and with Tim Wells absent for the second reading deadlocked 2-2, ending the issue.
Now, one year later, the parks board again voted Wednesday evening, this time 7-0, to recommend that the council amend the city code to allow the sale and consumption of beer and wine coolers at the golf course. This time the vote was in response to a recommendation from a sub-committee set up to look at ways to make the course more viable financially.
"This is being done nationwide to offset expenses. It would help keep golfers here rather than going elsewhere," Cat McGrath-Farmer, sub-committee chairman, told the board.
"In the past I remember hearing that it could bring in about $12,000," Jim Novak, parks board president, said.
"This is not a beer-free golf course," Warren Schooley, parks board member, said, adding that this way the golf course will get the money from the beer consumed.
This was just one of several suggestions this sub-committee made to help the course make more money.
McGrath-Farmer told the board that they also thought the clubhouse should be enlarged and eventually have more food available.
In the meantime, she said, if they were to set up a grill outside the clubhouse during tournaments the course could add to their revenue, instead of letting the tournament organizers provide their own food.
She told the board that other suggestions included a family pass for the course and a family pass for both the golf course and the Walton Family Aquatic Center, with the pass including the entire family, and holding a local parent/youth golf tournament on week day evenings.
"This would encourage family use," she said.
One problem the sub-committee would like to see addressed is promotion of the course.
She said they would like to see a virtual tour on the Internet of the course.
"You have a championship course. It needs to be promoted," she said.
Other suggestions included landscaping and planting more flowers on the course at the different holes and tee boxes to add more color, repair the asphalt cart paths and incorporate a yearly maintenance into the budget and correct the flooding problems on some sections of the course so it can be played in wet weather.
"Having more color on the course makes it easier to promote the course," she said.
A major loss of revenue to the course is privately owned golf carts. McGrath-Farmer said the group recommended that the private ownership of golf carts be phased out, as the current private carts wear out.
"The cart revenue is a viable option to earn revenue for the course," she said.
"These are all things that we have suggested and never got implemented," Novak said.
"The community as a whole must understand the importance of the golf course and the need to offset expenses," McGrath-Farmer said.