Basketball in Chicago is definitively a public nuisance. (Evanston, Skokie: violent crime, pool)

[doublenickels]

Basketball playing in Chicago is a problem of epidemic proportions, now that they have "portable / movable" basketball hoops. Basketball is supposed to be played INSIDE A GYM, not in back yards, nor alleys, nor streets. Basketball playing anywhere the public is exposed to it, is the very definition of public nuisance.

Here is just happened in Evanston. You better believe, it was preceded by tons of annoying noise, crowds? and a lot of aggravation:

MOD CUT

2 charged in assault of woman, killing of dog in Skokie - Chicago Breaking News (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/05/2-charged-in-assault-of-woman-killing-of-dog-in-skokie.html - broken link)

"Late Sunday night, the woman and her husband were walking their dogs near outdoor basketball courts at 3701 Davis St. and saw three males playing basketball. The woman made comments to the suspects about the late hour they were playing when one of the suspects confronted her, police said.

MOD EDIT

[PokerPlayer1]

Originally Posted by doublenickels

"Late Sunday night, the woman and her husband were walking their dogs near outdoor basketball courts at 3701 Davis St. and saw three males playing basketball.

Call the cops. It's Skokie, not Chicago. They'll show up. Going out to confront them is just stupid. MOD CUT . It's not smart MOD CUT to confront them like that.

Either way, they'll be going away for a while... Good riddance.

[doublenickels]

Interesting. You actually know Chicago cops don't even respond. Lots of folks don't believe that. But, it is a fact.

Originally Posted by PokerPlayer1

Call the cops. It's Skokie, not Chicago. They'll show up. Going out to confront them is just stupid. . It's not smart ........ to confront them like that.

Either way, they'll be going away for a while... Good riddance.

[tribecavsbrowns]

God, that's horrible. We're fighting here in my city, which has many similarities to the Evanston/Skokie area, to bring back the outdoor basketball hoops after a couple people complained and somehow got the city to tear every single one in the city limits down (this is a city of 50,000). So it's a gut punch for us, too.

I'm not telling you anything you don't know here, but ? sound like they were out to do ?, so I don't think basketball had a whole heck of a lot to do with it. The thing about outdoor basketball is when you have like 25-30 people hanging around rotating in and out of games, there are few problems. Most of the problems seem to come from groups of two or three monsters who hang around the hoops late at night. Why they're even up there shooting baskets, I don't know. MOD CUT

[PokerPlayer1]

I don't know where I come down on this issue.

Professor Harold Hill sold the citizens of River City on a shiny, new brass band by warning of the evils brought on by the presence of a pool hall... Blaming basketball itself really seems to be a pretext for the 'real problem', which is that basketball = MOD CUT violent crime, but we can't say that, so I guess blaming basketball is the easiest answer.

Still, even though basketball doesn't 'cause' crime, there's a ? correlation between the presence of basketball hoops and violent criminal behavior. Hegewisch tore down the ones in Mann Park for precisely this reason. MOD CUT

[Chi-town Native]

ideally you have youth leagues in the park district that channel the energy through supervised games - but that would mean not cutting their budgets.

teenagers/young adults always have more energy than they (or society) know what to do with...

[surlycue]

I would think that if the park is open, and it likely would be at 11PM since most parks in the city are open until 12, that use of any of the facilities would be fine. It's not as though they were playing in the street and woke the complainant. I'm surprised she had the gall to complain to people playing in a park.

She didn't deserve to get her ass whooped but this seems like a ridiculous cause to take up. It's just basketball, for chrissake.

[ajolotl]

Doing something like forbidding late night basketball might shift some crime and public nuisance from one area to another, but it does nothing to solve the underlying problem.

[Avengerfire]

Ok if this happened in Skokie why are you posting this in the Chicago forum?

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by doublenickels

Basketball playing in Chicago is a problem of epidemic proportions, now that they have "portable / movable" basketball hoops...

Some of my buddies had these like 15 years ago or more. These are not new.