MCC golf course joyriders wreck carts and greens

Staff report

GIRARD

Joyriders snuck in to the Mahoning Country Club on Liberty Street early Wednesday morning, taking golf carts for a spin around the course and causing thousands of dollars worth of damage to the carts and greens.

It’s not the first time the carts have been used for unauthorized after-hours jaunts, said David Ezzo, the club owner said.

“We had the same problem on Monday night,” Ezzo said, adding that the latest incident was much worse. On Monday, all the carts were parked back in their respective spaces. On Wednesday morning, all of the carts were returned to their spaces except for cart 23. The damage done during the night to the frame left it broken, bent, and stranded.

“[Cart 23] was so badly damaged, it wouldn’t steer,” Ezzo said. “They made it back to the clubhouse, but that’s as far as they got.”

Police said that at least five suspected cart-jackers were seen on surveillance footage taken from cameras that overlook the cart staging area at around 1:45 a.m. The rain and glare from the pavilion lighting made the night vision ineffective, and it was not possible to identify any suspects from the video, police said.

There was damage done to four greens, but Ezzo said that they are still playable. They should be fully healed within the next couple of days, he added.

Ezzo suspects that whoever is responsible has a key of their own.

“If they had a key from the same brand cart, they could have keyed them all on at the same time,” Ezzo said.

Ezzo told police that the damage done to the carts and the course would cost $8,000 to repair. He said that he would be taking extra security measures such as chaining the carts together overnight and hiring a night-watchman.