Castle Hills Conflict (Bathukamma) - Who Was Inconsiderate? (Howe: to rent, HOA)

[IAmL8]

First time caller, long time listener...Decided to create an account to postabout this since it's been bothering me. Sorry for the long post.

We are a second generation East Asian family living in Castle Hills North. This weekend, we had some friends come visit. Being a bunch of guys who love to play basketball, we headed to the neighborhood park for some hoops. We got in a couple games shortly after 6PM on Friday and decided to head back out around the same time again on Saturday.

For those of you not familiar with the CHN park, I've attached a Google Maps image. The basketball court has a 10-feet chain-linked fence all around it. The playground is to the left. The building has a clubhouse that can be rented out.

Saturday evening rolls around, and we headed out around 6:30PM. The entire park was packed! There were at least 150 people there having what looked like a festival. The parking lot was packed, and cars were parked in the street all along the park. There was a banner hanging on the northern section of the court fence (we later found out that it said "Castle Hills Bathukamma"). There were loudspeakers on the grass north of the court playing Hindi music. There were at least 3 folding picnic tables of food on the sidewalk running along the west side of the court. It seemed to be mostly adults with a large group of kids playing in the grass area north of the court. The majority of the adults were in the grass area between the court and playground.

We parked our car in the street directly south of the court. As we walked towards the court, we noticed that there was a group of about 20 women congregated at midcourt. There also seemed to be something setup under the north basket (not positive; could have been just the banner but we were a bit overwhelmed), and we didn't want to walk through the group. Therefore, we started to shoot at the near basket. Within 1-2minutes, one of the women came to us asking if we wouldn't mind not playing basketball since she was afraid that the ball would land onto some floral arrangements they had at center court. We told her to not worry about it, that we will make sure the ball doesn't get over there. She seemed unhappy and walked away. If they were really worried about that, they could just move completely to the other half of the court instead of being at midcourt. Realizing that there was no way we could get in a half-court game with all those people standing at midcourt and along the west fence, we decided to play H-O-R-S-E.

A couple minutes later, a few men approached us and asked us if it was okay if we not play for "10 minutes" while the women do their dance around their floral arrangements at midcourt. We told them the same thing we told the woman. They nodded and walked away. We continued our game, and a couple minutes later, a different group of men walked up. This time, the group's tone of voice became confrontational. They asked us again if we could not play. I believe they also asked us to leave. We were heated. We told them that we would not leave, that it's a community court so we are staying to play. One guy raised his voice and asked, "How would you like it if we bring a group of 50 people (while pointing to the group of people standing outside the court) and interrupt your game?" We told them, "Great! There are 5 of us. Let's do 5-on-5. Winner stays." Some other men stepped in and separated the guy, pushing him away from us. I heard them telling the guy as they walked away that it is a community court.

We continued playing and sure enough the group of men approached us again a couple minutes later. They asked us, "You can play any day. Can you please just not play today? We only do this once per year. Just give the women 10 minutes to do their dance." At this point, there was no way I was going to leave. I was thinking to myself 'Well, you picked the wrong day. Also, all my friends only come visit once per year so how about you do your thing on another day?' I pay the same HOA dues as they do so I have the same privileges to neighborhood amenities as they do. Who are they to tell me when I can or should play basketball? With daylight already short, we weren't going to sacrifice our time for theirs. Not knowing what kind of dance they were going to do, 10 minutes could easily turn into 30 minutes (we also have cultural dances and they tend to run long; also, nobody is satisfied with just one dance). Additionally, it's a basketball court for crying out loud! We told them again that it is a community court and if they wanted privacy, they should have rented the neighborhood clubhouse. In the meantime, they can move the dance to the grass and let us play basketball on the basketball court. They assured us that they would rent the clubhouse next year. However, since the grass is wet from the rain earlier in the day, they needed to use the court. We walked on the same grass to get to the court, and it did not seem wet to us. Additionally, their kids are playing on the grass.

In the end, the women picked up their floral arrangements and settled to the grass area south of the court. We were also no longer in the mood for basketball so decided to go home. When we got home, I did some research on what "Bathukamma" was and started to feel inconsiderate since it seemed to be a pretty important festival in their culture. The more I thought about it though, I stopped feeling inconsiderate. If anything, they were the inconsiderate ones. I'm sure HOA regulations would prevent them from taking up the whole area for themselves. I shouldn't have to plan my activities around their lack of planning (reserving the clubhouse or picking a park that you can reserve). During the whole ordeal, I also couldn't help but think of the many times when I took my kids to the park and there are several of them sitting on the playground equipment blocking my 22-month old daughter from going up the steps to the slide. She would just stand there staring at them, not knowing what to do. They would look at her and say, "You're so cute". I would look back at them thinking to myself that the girl can't talk yet...that's her way of saying "Excuse me." I almost always never say anything because I figured common courtesy is a universal language. Eventually, they would get the clue and move over enough to make room for my daughter. Anyways, I guess yesterday's ordeal started to become personal when they got confrontational.

Again, sorry for the long post. Who do you guys think were the inconsiderate ones?

[adyn]

Kind of sounds like they had the place and you butted in. If it were me, I would have left and let them have it like they wanted for their festival. It is clear they needed the space for their dance.

If I had a festival once per year and a bunch of people came to crash it because they didn't want to go somewhere else to play, I'd be upset too.

[synchronicity]

My only thought is - for community facilities, isn't there some sort of protocol for "renting" the place for a festival/occasion? I mean, shouldn't the festival organizers have filled out some paperwork with the CHN park administrators or HOA or whoever to have access to the park during their event? If so, wouldn't there be something spelling out exclusive access to areas during that time frame?

I'm not sure what you did was "OK", but I'm also not OK with a group just arbitrarily deciding to take over a PUBLIC common access area for whatever reason and claiming exclusivity because, well, they're there. Usually, for any group to hold such a gathering there are documents to be completed and liability waivers to be signed and whatnot.

[adyn]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

My only thought is - for community facilities, isn't there some sort of protocol for "renting" the place for a festival/occasion? I mean, shouldn't the festival organizers have filled out some paperwork with the CHN park administrators or HOA or whoever to have access to the park during their event? If so, wouldn't there be something spelling out exclusive access to areas during that time frame?

I'm not sure what you did was "OK", but I'm also not OK with a group just arbitrarily deciding to take over a PUBLIC common access area for whatever reason and claiming exclusivity because, well, they're there. Usually, for any group to hold such a gathering there are documents to be completed and liability waivers to be signed and whatnot.

Yes, I agree, but perhaps they did?

[Texascrude]

I can't believe that you think you've been wronged here. You're lucky one of the women didn't slap you around -- I know my wife sure would have. 1) It sounds like they were there first. 2) It sounds like they had 50+ people that you wanted to accommodate your group of a few. 3) They were clearly doing something much more important than playing a game of horse.

Just because there's a hoop set up you think that gives you automatic first dibs on any activity there, regardless of when you get there or how it's being utilized first? If people are playing frisbee on the soccer field, that doesn't mean I automatically get to kick them off when I show up with a soccer ball. It's a common use area, and they were using it. Further, it sounds like they only wanted you to accommodate them for 10 minutes??! Not shootings hoops for 10 minutes was too big of an inconvenience for you that you had to puff up your chest and act like you owned the place?

What has this world come to where someone won't give a group of 50 women TEN MINUTES of peace so they can do their thing? I hope you raise your 22 month old daughter to show more respect to others than that.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by adyn

Yes, I agree, but perhaps they did?

If they did then there's no issue - the OP and his friends were wrong, period. Furthermore, they should've been shooed off the court and the people should have just told them "we have access to this area until [end of festival time], you'll have to wait until after that to play" or "we rented/leased/whatever-the-term-is this area, therefore you'll have to leave" or "however we would be willing to let you play IF [you accede to these requests], otherwise you'll have to leave"

I'm somewhat surprised the festival peeps didn't directly tell them to get stuffed assuming they had secured access to the area, which makes me wonder if they hadn't. Not that I think what the OP did was a good idea, either, but if one wants to hold an event in a common use area they should go through proper channels to do so.

[Aceraceae]

Sounds like they did not want to accommodate you, and you have equal right to use the space. They were inconsiderate and approached mob mentality IMO.

[Gilah G.]

Sounds like they might have had permission to use that area.
(Lots of cars, 150 people, tables of food, big banner)

You could have waited 10 minutes. The LADY asked you politely first.
The men were concerned for their women and sounds like they didn't want any trouble,
Which YOU gave them.

Dude, you could have waited.

[IAmL8]

Originally Posted by adyn

Yes, I agree, but perhaps they did?

I'm quite sure they didn't have the place reserved because they never brought it up. Additionally, I don't even think it's possible to rent out the community park. The clubhouse is rentable for sure at a rate of $50...I don't remember for how long, but I did check into it once.

[Squirl]

I would have given them their 10 minutes since they were there first and they had prepared for this event. Understand that you were using the space for its intended use and they were not, but sometimes kindness should superced all else. This would have been one of those times.....