The information in this newsletter is being distributed among allied associations that form the California Alliance for Golf (CAG), the organization that speaks with one voice in the Capitol regarding legislative and regulatory issues of statewide scope.
Governor Newsom signs CAG sponsored bill to give the state’s municipalities the tool they have long needed to maintain control over their municipal golf courses' tee sheets, access policies, and pricing schedules.
SACRAMENTO – The California Alliance for Golf (CAG) today celebrated Governor Newsom’s signing of AB 1954, authored by Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego) and sponsored by CAG.
Titled the “Protecting Access to Reservations Act” or “PAR” Act, AB 1954 makes it an unfair business practice for a third-party golf reservation service platform to list, advertise, promote, sell, or transfer golf reservations for a golf course owned by a local public agency without written authorization from the golf course owner or operator – and allows the aggrieved owner or operator to seek legal relief from violators.
Those who played public golf in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties in 2024 certainly remember the public outcry about 3rd party intervenors capturing large tranches of municipal tee times, selling them at premium rates, and scooping up the differences for themselves. Seeing an opportunity to make large sums of money made possible by municipal commitments to keeping their publicly owned parkland golf courses affordable and accessible, they took it.
The problem? There was nothing about taking that opportunity that was unlawful. However, there was something about failing to report and pay taxes on the fruits of the opportunity, and that is why a couple of them were indicted by the federal government for criminal tax evasion – to be more precise for failing to report somewhere between $700,000.00 and $1.2 million in income derived from brokering municipal tee times in the greater Los Angeles area over a 2-year period. Whether the US Attorney’s Office is able to prove that beyond the reasonable doubt that is the criminal law’s threshold remains to be seen, but $.7 to $1.2 million represents more than enough “opportunity” to entice others to get into a “business” that requires so little overhead.
The California Alliance for Golf (CAG) thanks Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego) for championing the legislation and Governor Newsom for signing it into law. We also thank the many municipalities that went on record in support of AB 1954, among them San Diego, the City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, San Clemente, and Thousand Oaks, as well as the statewide municipal organizations that formally supported the legislation as well – among them the League of California Cities, the California Association of Recreation & Park Districts, the California Special Districts Association, and the California State Association of Counties.
To read the bill as it has been chaptered by the Secretary of State: Today's Law As Amended - AB-1954 Municipal golf courses: reservations.
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