Resolution Sought in Fight Over Golf Balls

The city-owned Los Robles Greens driving range will remain open for at least another two weeks while attorneys for Thousand Oaks try to reach a compromise with lawyers for a man suing the city over errant golf balls.

At a hearing in Ventura County Superior Court on Monday, Judge Barbara Lane gave Thousand Oaks and the attorney for landowner Al Dickens until Feb. 20 to find a solution to their dispute. If the parties cannot find common ground before that date, the popular driving range may have to close.

Dickens, who is constructing an office building on Moorpark Road immediately beside the range, claims to have been knocked unconscious by a golfer’s errant slice. He sued Thousand Oaks last year, charging that wild golf balls are constantly flying around his property, hitting construction workers and frightening everyone.

In a move city leaders have labeled unfair, Lane issued a preliminary injunction last October, forcing Thousand Oaks to either prevent all golf balls from landing on Dickens’ land or shut the driving range.

But city officials have complained that no changes would be enough to satisfy Lane’s order. Even if Thousand Oaks built a 100-foot-tall safety net or took other extreme precautions, the city could never guarantee that a ball or two would not somehow end up on Dickens’ property, said City Atty. Mark Sellers.

“We cannot live with it,” Sellers said. “We cannot run a [driving range] and guarantee that a ball isn’t going to make it over the fence once in a while.”

Thousand Oaks attorneys requested Monday’s meeting to try to persuade Dickens’ attorney, Jack Sweeney, to agree to a less restrictive order. The city makes about $40,000 a year from the range.

But the two parties could not agree on the terms of a new injunction, and Lane decided to give them two weeks to work it out. Sweeney could not be reached for comment Monday.