Portable Basketball Still Out of Bounds

Cul-de-sac basketball remains a crime. The City Council has rejected the city engineer’s plan to deal with portable basketball backboards left unattended on public streets and sidewalks.

Basketball setups have grown in popularity as homeowner associations have banned backboards from garages and driveways.

City Engineer Ken Rosenfield proposed a plan to “govern allowable uses of portable sports apparatus in the public right-of-way and to address related complaints.”

Councilman L. Allan Songstad Jr. said the city is “asking for trouble,” and objected to the proposal to allow the apparatus because it could open the city to lawsuits.

Nighttime traffic safety is of key concern, Councilwoman Cindy Greengold said, as most basketball setups do not come with light reflectors. No serious accidents have been reported involving portable hoops.

The Lomas Laguna Homeowners Assn. of Laguna Hills has developed a dusk-to-dawn policy that requires homeowners to remove basketball setups from the streets at night.

Rosenfield is asking the council for a policy for notifying violators, removing and storing the hoops, and recovering the city’s costs.

The $150 to $500 basketball setups are supposed to be impounded along with other sports apparatus like hockey nets and skateboard ramps, at a considerable cost to the city. City Manager Bruce Channing said the city would spend more enforcing the law than in liability lawsuits.

The council has referred the issue back to Rosenfield. An expanded survey of the issue is being developed.