The Winamac Town Council does not appear to be loosening restrictions on golf carts in the near future. Three years after resident Nora Schambers asked council members to let small children ride in golf carts, she once again went before the town council last month.
“Can I please take my kids on my golf cart, please?” she asked. “Can we change the ordinance, please?”
Town Attorney Justin Schramm said a 48-pound weight minimum was placed in Winamac’s golf cart ordinance, based on Indiana State Police guidelines for booster seats in cars. He pointed out that some towns instead use an age minimum, which could be easier to enforce. “Sometimes it’s hard to police,” Schramm noted. “You know, you stop somebody. You say, ‘How much does your child weigh?’ ‘Well, 39 pounds.’ I mean, do we take them and weigh them right there? It’s easy enough to have an age prescribed to it because the worry may not be the effects on the child because of how much they weigh. It may be, ‘Do they have the cognitive ability to understand what they should and should not be doing on a golf cart at five, six, seven, eight years old?’”
Meanwhile, Council Member Judy Heater said she’s gotten another request for Gators to be allowed on town streets. But she also said the council put a lot of thought into the golf cart ordinance when it was created, to try to be as safe as possible for everyone. The reason Gators weren’t included was because some can go significantly faster than a regular golf cart.
Council members pointed out that there are already individuals who don’t follow the rules, and they weren’t comfortable with loosening them. In the end, the Winamac Town Council voted to keep the golf cart ordinance as it currently is.
