Carmel-by-the-Sea has become the first city in California to completely ban pickleball on public courts, after years of friction between paddle-loving players and neighbors who say the sport turned their quiet town into a noisy circus.
For locals like Kimberly Edwards, who lives near the tennis courts converted to pickleball at Forest Hill Park, the relentless “pop pop pop” of plastic balls wasn’t just background noise – it invaded her garden, her living room and even her bedroom. At a recent council meeting she told officials bluntly: it might not bother everyone, “but it’s a problem for me.”
From trendy sport to neighborhood flashpoint
Pickleball, a mash-up of tennis, badminton and ping-pong, has exploded in popularity nationwide. Cities have rushed to repaint lines, add nets and squeeze in more courts as players of all ages flock to the game’s short learning curve and social vibe.
But in Carmel-by-the-Sea, that boom came with a cost. What started as a small group of residents over 50 asking the city for a net at Forest Hill Park swelled into “scores of people” descending on a single court, day after day. Councilmember Bob Delves said the once-peaceful park “kind of turned into a madhouse” – a jarring mismatch with the town’s carefully curated quiet, coastal charm.
After two years of complaints about noise and crowding, the City Council has now voted to permanently ban pickleball at public facilities and directed staff to draft an ordinance in December to make the prohibition official.
Noise wars from Laguna Beach to Denver
Carmel’s decision is the most drastic in California so far, but the underlying fight is anything but unique. Across the country, the sport’s sharp, plastic “thwack” has sparked neighborhood drama and legal threats.
Other communities have tried to tame, not terminate, the game:
- In Laguna Beach, officials require players to use special “quiet paddles,” with the threat of citations for noncompliance.
- Saratoga set aside $100,000 to explore sound-reduction measures at its courts.
- Newport Beach faced a lawsuit from a resident who claimed nearby pickleball play caused her “severe mental suffering,” leading the city to limit playing hours and add sound-dampening materials.
- Denver has experimented with quieter pickleballs to reduce noise at public courts.
Acoustic experts say a solid pickleball hit can be about 20 decibels louder than the loudest tennis shot, and because the sound is impulsive – more like a car backfire than ambient traffic – it can feel especially jarring in quiet residential neighborhoods. Nalini Lasiewicz, who runs the nonprofit Pickleball Noise Relief, has labeled it an “acoustical assault” and calls pickleball “the first major noise pollution to hit the suburbs.”
Carmel’s experiment – and frustration
City leaders in Carmel-by-the-Sea didn’t jump straight to a ban. Over the past two years they tried to thread the needle between the game’s passionate fans and residents desperate for peace:
- Reducing hours of play
- Debating rules that would force players to use soft “librarian foam” balls
- Studying sound walls and other barriers that have produced mixed results elsewhere
In October, the city temporarily halted pickleball at its only public courts while staff searched for a workable compromise. But officials ultimately concluded that enforcement would be a nightmare in a small city with no full recreation department and roughly 100 staffers total.
Council members worried about who would police paddle types, balls and noise rules. Would neighbors be expected to call the police every time they heard a loud “pop”? Would officers sit courtside listening for violations? One neighbor, Edwards, called that “an unrealistic proposition.”
Delves summed up the council’s fatigue: tennis, he said, “basically consumes zero time and expense,” but pickleball had become “a significant distraction” draining resources the city simply doesn’t have.
Growing sport, shrinking access
For players, the ban is a gut punch. Carmel is now the only city on the Monterey Peninsula without public pickleball courts, limiting access to a game many credit with boosting their health and social lives.
Pickleball’s appeal has been turbocharged in the last decade. A report from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association estimated nearly 19.8 million people played in 2024 – a jump of more than 45% from the previous year. That surge has turned pickleball into a staple at community centers, private clubs and chic urban venues, including new social clubs pairing courts with saunas, cold plunges and craft cocktails.
Local player Barbara Lang urged the council to try a “quiet ball” rule instead of a ban, arguing it would let residents “exercise and have fun” without rattling neighbors. But for many non-players, trust in softer solutions has worn thin.
Lasiewicz worries the problem is already shifting from public to private space, with backyard and short-term rental courts multiplying. Even if public courts go dark, she says, there’s little stopping visitors from booking vacation homes with pickleball lines painted just steps from someone else’s kitchen window.
A quirky town draws a firm line
In some ways, locals say, it makes perfect sense that Carmel-by-the-Sea would be the first to take such a hard line. The storybook town of about 3,200 has long prided itself on strict rules designed to protect its village feel.
The city famously had no street addresses for years, relying instead on P.O. boxes at the local post office. There are no parking meters, no streetlights in most neighborhoods, and sidewalks are limited to the small commercial core. In 1963, Carmel even passed a heel-height law aimed at discouraging spike heels over 2 inches, a tongue-in-cheek way to avoid trip-and-fall lawsuits over tree-rooted sidewalks. (Visitors can still get a novelty “heel permit” at City Hall.)
“Sometimes it can even seem absurd,” Delves acknowledged of the town’s regulations, “but that’s what we have to do” to preserve its tranquility and quirks.
For now, that includes saying no to pickleball, at least on city-run courts. As the fight over noisy paddles spreads nationwide, Carmel’s ban offers a preview of how far some communities are willing to go to defend their version of peace and quiet in the pickleball era.
Focused words: pickleball ban, Carmel-by-the-Sea, pickleball noise, California coastal city, public pickleball courts
