Park Board scraps beach court time for hundreds of volleyball players

Volleyball at the beach/Shutterstock

Hundreds of volleyball players are out of the game after the Vancouver Park Board scrapped their beach court time at Spanish Banks.

Late last year, the park board informed Volleyball BC it would need to give up one of its permits. The non-profit had been operating Monday to Thursday nights.

Emma Gibbons, CEO of Volleyball BC, said the news “came as a complete surprise.”

Despite meeting with the park board last month with the aim of finding an alternate solution, “we were told they weren’t interested in working with us,” Gibbons said.

Volleyball BC has been running leagues for over 30 years. Gibbons suggests that about 40,000 people have participated in the league during those years. Losing the permit for Monday night means 450 cannot play.

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Ben, who organized a team and has played in Monday evening leagues for two years, told Daily Hive losing the league is “really hard.” He explained that this has put “too much demand on the other nights,” making it “impossible” to sign up. Additionally, some people in the league are only free on Monday nights and will be forced to drop out altogether.

“As a player and park user, it’s frustrating that Parks made a decision like this,” he said.

The Vancouver @ParkBoard recently decided to take away the Monday night permit from @VolleyballBC to run at Spanish Banks, with the potential to remove more permits in the future. Why?? Beach volleyball is a staple in Vancouver during spring/summer and is so popular, I'm baffled. pic.twitter.com/Gga5zYMXxu

— Milena Constanda (@MilenaConstanda) February 24, 2024

In addition, the remaining 3,000 to 4,000 participants will face a price increase “because obviously we’d lost a cut of our operations,” Gibbons said.

Permit removed for new park board sports leagues

A spokesperson for the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation told Daily Hive it removed the Monday night permit as it is launching a Park Board-led sports league, VanSport, which would pilot with a beach volleyball co-ed 4s league.

It was through the engagement session in January that the park board said staff asked Volleyball BC which permit removal would least impact it.

“Volleyball BC identified Mondays as having the least impact on its operations.”

Concern for Volleyball BC’s future

While Volleyball BC still has several permits, Gibbons said she is worried the park board could remove more permits in the future.

Gibbons admits the park board has not specifically said it would remove more permits, but “they have definitely indicated that.”

“They have said that this year they will be evaluating the benefits and the impact of running the league and then it may translate into taking additional permits moving forward, which was what was really most concerning for us,” she said.

If Volleyball BC loses more permits, Gibbons explained it would impact community programs and activities which are heavily funded by the leagues.

“These leagues provide important revenue that we use to directly support investment in programs, services, and activities that benefit the community, including youth programs and high-profile tournaments.”

The spokesperson for the park board added that Volleyball BC’s concerns “will continue to be taken into account and will be given consideration as we build the future of this league. We will also continue our engagement with them throughout this process.”

VanSport league

While there may be concerns about the already limited access to organized beach leagues in Vancouver, the park board insisted that by offering “significantly lower registration costs,” its leagues would be more accessible to people.

While the park board’s VanSport league will start with beach volleyball, it plans to eventually include other sports.

VanSport has been in the works for 15 months, and according to the park board, it intends to:

“Address the ongoing concerns around commercialization and unauthorized use of public assets, in this case, the volleyball courts at Spanish Banks,
Act as an opportunity to generate revenue for the Park Board by leveraging recreation infrastructure, as highlighted in the approved Think Big strategy,
Allow us to meet strategic business objectives as outlined in our VanPlay strategy,
[And] improve asset management and maintenance delivered solely through Park Board and not through facility users.”

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