Neighbors sued Boise over pickleball noise. Now, city moves to shutter courts
Around 30 pickleball players packed the courts Friday morning at Boise’s Manitou Park. Most over 70, they chatted and waited for their turn in the rotation, paddles hooked into the chain-link fence to show their place in line.
The pickleball courts are always crowded on summer mornings, players said — but were perhaps even more so on Friday after players learned their days on the courts were numbered, said Mary Hanson, who has been playing at Manitou for years.
The city in a news release said it settled with residents who sued the city over the “oppressive” noise coming from another pickleball court. Because of the noise coming off the court, the plaintiffs’ home “has become unlivable for much of the year,” they wrote in a January tort claim, which the Idaho Statesman obtained through a public records request.
Their lawsuit concerned courts at Willow Lane Park in northwest Boise. But after reviewing the facts in that case, Boise’s Parks and Recreation Department determined that the courts at Manitou Park between Broadway Avenue and Federal Way were also “no longer a suitable site for pickleball,” according to the release on the city’s website.
“This decision has not been made lightly,” the city said, and was based on the amount of ambient noise in the area, the number of courts at the facility and the proximity of the courts to people’s homes. Starting Tuesday, the city will close the courts and transition them back to tennis only.
Manitou Park’s pickleballers were caught off-guard by the news. They learned about it only from a poster the city put up on the courts’ gate and criticized the city for shuttering the courts without any public hearing.
“That’s what’s so frustrating to me,” said Steven Lanzet, who was out at the courts Friday.
Bonnie Shelton, a spokesperson for Boise Parks and Recreation, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Manitou Park courts’ closures.
Pickleball noise is an ‘auditory assault,’ tort claim says
Pickleball noise isn’t just a nuisance, plaintiffs argued in their tort claim against Boise. One of them, Kathleen Romito, is a retired physician who serves on scientific advisory councils focused on the potential health effects of pickleball noise.
“Noise is the new ‘secondhand smoke’ and has myriad effects on our health,” Romito’s LinkedIn bio says. The “continuous, random auditory assault” she and her husband have faced has contributed to stress, anxiety, cognitive impairment and sleep disturbance, among other concerns, they wrote in their claim.
In their tort claim, the couple sought an injunction requiring Boise to shut down the Willow Lane courts, as well as $1.6 million in damages.
Boise initially declined to disclose to the Statesman the terms of its settlement with the couple. In a Tuesday news release, the city attached the settlement agreement, which includes a payment of $7,000 and its promise to reserve the courts only for tennis leagues and programming by Dec. 1.
“Pickleball is a great sport,” Romito said in an emailed statement to the Statesman. “It’s fun, social, active. It just doesn’t belong right next to homes. Noise experts who are addressing hundreds of similar conflicts across the country will tell you the same thing.”
Pickleball players say they don’t have enough courts
The players at Manitou Park said their courts’ closure leaves them with few options to get their pickleball fix.
Two pickleball courts at nearby Eagle Rock Park will be the only remaining dedicated city courts in the eastern half of the city, according to the city’s website. Gesturing at the crowded Manitou Park courts Friday, player Matt Elliott said Eagle Rock wouldn’t cut it.
“The line’s gonna be around the block to try to get your game in,” he said.
The courts at Hobble Creek Park in northwest Boise will remain, and others are going up in Meridian and Caldwell, players said.
A wide range of players, young and old, use the courts at different times of day, players told the Statesman. But they felt the city wasn’t giving enough weight to the needs of its elderly players, who value the chance to socialize and be active outside.
Pickleball “is so easy to play from the very first day that someone can pick it up,” Lanzet said. “Anything that gets people out and active, especially as we get older, should be encouraged, not discouraged.”
This story was originally published August 30, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
