I would like to express my frustration with the Albert Lea Aquatic Center this summer and its habit of closing early based on low attendance. Several times this swim season on nice, sunny days the pool has not honored its posted hours, inconveniencing dozens of pool patrons and disrupting plans and schedules.

When I purchased a booklet of passes this year, I made a commitment to the aquatic center. When they sold them, they implied one thing to me: a commitment that they were going to be open noon until 7 p.m., unless the weather did not allow them to be, so I could use those passes.

Unfortunately, several times this season I have arrived at the pool, as staff members were getting ready to close their doors, hours before they were supposed to. Several other times, while already at the pool, it has been announced that they were closing early. This is unacceptable.

People plan their days around the times that the pool is open. A mother that gets off work at 3:30 p.m. and gets her kids ready for swimming expects the pool to be open as scheduled just as she would expect a restaurant to be open when she gets off work at 8:30 p.m. and goes through a drive-through to feed her children.

I understand that when attendance is low the pool is not very profitable, but this is true of all businesses. There are busy days and there are slow days. A restaurant or grocery store isn’t very profitable on a cool evening in February. They, however, honor their posted hours when it is slow, send a few employees home early and take advantage of the down time to do extra cleaning. This is not the case at the city pool, where six to eight people will sit in the office and do nothing except watch the dock and plan the time of their early departure.

Closing early is a foolish strategy to cut costs because low attendance is self-perpetuating. Once customers realize a business is willing to close on a whim, they will be less likely to visit that business. This is especially true of the pool since it is no small task to get a family ready for a visit to the pool. Why would they bother if they suspect that visit will likely be cut short or that they will be turned away at the door?

Operating costs are obviously an issue. Closing every time the number of swimmers drops below a certain threshold, however, will only aggravate this revenue problem because it encourages the customers they do have to skip their next visit entirely.

It seems, other cities have longer swim seasons and longer daily operating hours at their pools and are apparently able to manage. While I don’t have access to the data to offer a real solution, running the Albert Lea Aquatic Center more like a business would be a great place to start. And when a business posts their hours, they honor them.

Brian Anderson

Albert Lea