Introduced as a spot or placeholder bill on the final day to file bills in this year’s session (February 17), AB 1590 was populated with substantive content subsequent thereto that among many other things would “prohibit the use of any nonorganic pesticide, as defined, or fertilizing material, as defined, at a major coastal resort.”
For the purposes of its provisions the bill defines a “major coastal resort” as a resort or hotel that meets all of the following: 1) Is composed of more than 300 guest rooms or units; 2) includes or operates a golf course on the premises; and 3) is located in whole or in part in the coastal zone.
While many of the bill’s particulars are not entirely clear, they are clear about the proscription on the use of all nonorganic pesticides and fertilizers on a golf course that is part of a “major coastal resort” containing 300 or more guest rooms. Whether the rooms and the golf course need be under the same ownership for the proscription to apply and/or whether the room count is an aggregate one or one restricted specifically to the golf course to which the rooms are attached – that is not clear, although it may become clear as the bill continues to be amended.
The bill has incurred significant opposition from the quarters one would expect, and any and all golf properties that might or might not come under the bill’s prohibitions are at minimum carefully watching the bill. The California Alliance for Golf (CAG) is “watching” the bill and contemplating possible action. Very few golf courses fit the bill’s particulars; however, the slope that would take the state from such proscriptions on large resorts cum golf functionality to proscriptions on all golf facilities within earshot of the “coastal zone” is a slippery one. As some have discovered when trying to develop a golf property that is outside the coastal zone but somewhat contiguous to it, the California Coastal Commission often asserts jurisdiction thereover.
Click here to read the bill as currently amended.
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Read More →The 2023 session of the California Legislature closed in the waning hours of Thursday night. While some of 2023’s bills have already been passed on to the Governor and signed into law, many more are now on the Governor’s desk for signature or veto, among them AB 1572 (Friedman; D-Burbank), which proscribes the use of potable water to irrigate purely ornamental or non-functional turf.
Read More →As the legislature races to the finish of a session complicated by a budget deficit that cannot be known until the Franchise Tax Board receives Californians’ tax returns in mid-October, here is what we can report now about those bills the golf community has supported in the session, the bills the community has been tracking carefully, and one gut-and-amend job we have brought to your attention for what its fate may be able to inform us about the decibel level of what we have termed “labor’s roar” and others have called “labor’s hot summer.”
Read More →The SCGA is pleased to be one of the “supporting sponsors” of the “Colorado Basin Golf & Water Summit” October 12 in Las Vegas, a conference organized initially and primarily by the National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA) but secondarily organized and supported by the SCGA and many more.
Read More →Anyone over a certain age, and even those below a certain age, know something of Yogi Berra’s caveat about predictions – “predictions are a dangerous thing, particularly about the future.”
Read More →The Legislature is on summer vacation. The members return August 14 and adjourn for the year 31 days later on September 14. Bills that pass through both houses by that date move to the Governor for signature or veto. Before they go to their respective floors for final votes, bills must first get through the two Appropriations Committees, the places where controversial bills often find their final resting places.
Read More →We were awakened this morning to an editorial running in today’s editions of the Southern California News Group’s newspapers (SCNG) advocating for the resurrection of AB 1910. Its title: “Why not turn golf courses into homes?”
Read More →An op-ed in the Los Angeles Times during US Open week captured the attention of the golf and non-golf worlds. Its title: “The PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger isn’t the problem; Golf is.”
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