HOLLISTER
With the governor proposing a 10 percent tax on nearly everything related to playing a round of golf – greens fees, cart rentals, yearly cart-stall rentals and range balls – Bolado Park Golf Course has taken action to send a message that it would hurt courses throughout the area and state.
“We started giving information to our members a couple of weeks ago,” said Bolado Park Golf Course General Manager Mike Winn. “We have posted notices on the doors, the counter. We are encouraging our members to write the governor, call him, go to the Web.”
Taxing golf is one of the areas Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has targeted to help fill in the gap left by the $42 billion state budget. Along with golf, other new areas that could be taxed include auto repair, sports tickets and amusement park admissions.
Local golf club managers and professionals expressed mixed feelings on the increase, while all of them agreed that the tax would negatively affect the industry in San Benito County.
San Juan Oaks Golf Club General Manager Scott Fuller, while he acknowledged it would hurt businesses throughout the state and result in less play, also asserted that it is hard to complain too much when billions of dollars in vital services to schools and social service agencies are being cut.
“We find it hard to protest much because we see there are other priorities in the state,” Fuller said. “There are bigger issues in California.”
Fuller, though, was in the minority among locals in the industry.
Ridgemark Golf Course Assistant Golf Pro Bruce Vieira said he wonders – if they tax golf, what would be next?
“Let me give you an example in seeing that we live in California,” Vieira said. “What if they started taxing all the surfers in Santa Cruz who go out and surf? Where does it end?”
When said it likely will have an effect on local businesses and golfers.
“Anytime you raise prices, it’s going to have an effect.”
He added that when taxes increase on something such as gas, it goes toward road maintenance. But that’s not the case here, he said.
“I’d be curious to see where this tax money is going go.”
H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the governor’s department of finance, said the six types of services Schwarzenegger is proposing to tax were picked because they involve businesses that commonly collect sales taxes on other goods they sell and that they could quickly adjust.
“There’s no good time to raise taxes,” Palmer said. “This is not something that the governor is putting forward because he enjoys it.”
Most of the players at a club like Bolado are regular working-class types of people, Winn said.
“Our members are watching their pennies. We lose annual players every month – they just can’t afford it. That’s the type of customers we have.”
Currently, the greens fees are $24 during the week and $30 on the weekend with a cart at Bolado Park. With the proposed 10 percent tax on greens fees and cart rentals, that would bring the totals to $26.40 and $33, respectively. A membership with cart-stall rentals – which is $1,050 a year at Bolado – would increase an extra $150 per year.
“For a lot of people, this is a big part of their life,” Winn said. “This would leave a big hole in their lives.”
Free Lance Editor Kollin Kosmicki, Gilroy Dispatch reporter Sara Suddes and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
