Council deadlocks on proposal for beer sales at golf course

The Nevada City Council deadlocked 2-2 Tuesday night on a resolution to start the process of allowing the city to sell beer at the Frank E. Peters Municipal Golf Course.

And the council is also planning to consider either strictly enforcing the current ban on liquor consumption at the golf course, or get rid of the current ordinance.

The Nevada Parks Board had voted in April to recommend the council allow the city to sell beer at the golf course as one of a series of measures to cut into the $100,000 the course loses each year, which included selling sandwiches and raising fees, as well as offering several new promotions to attract more people to play the course.

During that same meeting, the board voted to have the city strictly enforce the current ordinance if the city council would not allow the sale of beer at the municipal course.

Several years ago, the city surrendered to the widespread flaunting of disregard fro the ban on drinking beer at the course and removed the signs that noted the prohibition of alcohol consumption.

The proposal the city was looking at on Tuesday would have required that all beer consumed on the municipal course would have to be sold by the city and would have prohibited anyone from bringing beer from elsewhere.

"If trash cans are any indicator, we have 9-1 beer cans to soda cans. It's being carried on the course in coolers. Dads with kids will still drink beer and kids will drink soda. There is considerable consumption at the golf course," Council member Tim Wells said.

Novak said that beer is widely consumed all over the Twin Lakes complex, not just on the golf course. They are asked to keep beer out of the dugouts, but they drink beer around the softball fields, in the parking lots and after the football games.

"We have to either enforce the ordinance or change the ordinance," council member Jayne Novak, said after the measure failed to gain the necessary three votes to pass.

Parks Board President Jim Novak told that council that sometime in the past there was an estimate that selling beer at the golf course would bring in about $12,000 annually.

Nevada Mayor Mike Hutchens said that he did not think allowing the sale of beer would help anything and it could cause additional problems.

"I don't think that this is the way to make it profitable, but this is an effort to cut into the cost," Bill McGuire, city manager, said.

"I don't think we have enough population to support a golf course of this caliber and to keep it up," he said, adding that based on the number of acres and the quality to the course the maintenance costs are low.

McGuire told the council that although he no longer plays golf, he played four or five days a week in the past and Nevada's course would have been a favorite of his, because of its challenging nature.

He said that he thinks a lot of out-of-town golfers would like to play tournaments here, which would bring in more revenue to the course. However, the downside of the tournaments is that there would be less open time available for local golfers.

He told the council that courses he used to play on required a reserved tee time, otherwise you could not play, adding that those courses might have 20,000 rounds of golf played a month.

In the end, Jayne Novak and Tim Wells voted yes and Bill Gillette and Mike Hutchens voted no. Joyce Wilson was excused.