Sports Center to Heed Neighbors’ Concerns

Operators of a Super Sports facility on Canal Street have promised neighbors that complaints about noise, bright lights, errant golf balls and late-night merriment are being heard.

Kent Hawkins, director of Super Sports Golf & Recreation Center, told the City Council this week that he will rein in sports enthusiasts as best he can, calling the police for assistance if necessary.

The promises came after petitions from at least 50 angry residents were turned in to city officials in recent weeks.

“Our lives have been totally disrupted,” said Lucia Elgas, who lives near the facility, which operates seven days a week.

When the sports center opened on the site of the defunct Peralta Middle School in 1994, many residents expressed relief that something was being done with the property.

Councilman Dan Slater, who recently visited the sports center with Mayor Joanne Coontz, reminded residents that the problems with Super Sports were less detrimental than the vandals attracted to the old school, “which was a burned-out, abandoned shell of nothing.”

While he counseled a period of adjustment, neighbors contended that their lives have been disrupted by yelling and carousing outside their doors well after the 10 p.m. closing time, noise from the roller-hockey rink and golf balls that have broken windows.

“We are taking drastic steps on some measures,” Hawkins said. He promised to beef up security and abide by conditions that were set when the club received a permit to operate.

Coontz said that city officials will continue to monitor the site and make sure that city codes are enforced.