Heather Wright/The Independent

Petrolia has pulled the plug on its indoor pickleball courts.

The town had set up courts inside the arena in mid-May. But Julie Bullock, director of parks, recreation and facilities, says the courts have been closed and those who paid dues for the summer program have been refunded.

“We’ve been having issues with the paint lines that we’ve put on for the pickleball courts,” Bulloch told council Monday. “It’s been affecting the ball hockey program that’s been going on at the arena for 20 plus years and it’s greatly affected their game.

“Since there are other places to play pickleball we’ve decided to just put a hold on that for the moment.”

There are other complicating factors, there is some maintenance which needs to be done in the arena.
“We have a couple upcoming projects that are going to kind of render the floor out of service while we look at our dehumidifier and change that as well.”

Bullock says the dehumidifier in the north end of the arena will be replaced and a catwalk above the ice will be extended to get to the area. All Systems Mechanical won the contract to replace the unit.
Bullock says the replacement and the new catwalk will cost about $50,000.

The director told “we’ll do some research on other options for future.”

Pickleball enthusiasts can play at the Mary Beech outdoor courts and at the Petrolia Y however the number of players makes for long waits to get onto the courts.

The Sarnia-Lambton pickleball group asked Petrolia recently in a letter to explore options to expand the sport in the community.