Arizona golf course superintendent to be arraigned over foul smell

GLENDALE, Arizona — A country club here finds itself in hot water over a pervasive and repugnant stench coming from one of its golf course ponds that has frustrated nearby residents of the Arrowhead Ranch subdivision.

Stephen Kyle Bais, the golf course superintendent for Arrowhead Country Club, is suspected of violating a city code related to odors and is scheduled to be arraigned in Glendale Municipal Court on Monday afternoon, local officials confirmed.

For years, homeowners have smelled what they described as sewage lingering around the affluent community. It’s usually worse around the summertime but subsides when it gets colder. But this past winter, the odor only got worse, increasing complaints from neighbors.

“It’s repulsive, a repulsive smell,” said Helena Johnson Bodine, HOA president for Arrowhead Ranch Phase Two. She added that “it’s nauseating.”

After years of dealing with the foul smell, a group of six fed-up residents filed separate odor petitions to the city last fall. They logged their observations of the pond at the golf course, located along the south side of Loop 101, between 67th Avenue and Union Hills Drive.

The city presented the petitions to the Glendale city prosecutor’s office to consider filing charges, Deputy City Manager Rick St. John explained. The odor violation charge was then filed Jan. 16.

The Republic made multiple attempts to contact Bais, golf course management and Arcis Golf, the company that owns the country club. None returned phone calls and emails by deadline.

It’s ‘hard to miss’ the stench at the Glendale golf course, some say
It was roughly two years ago when Johnson Bodine said she first noticed the smell. It would go away temporarily when the cooler weather rolled in, but then it returned with the summer heat.

“I thought it was a city sewer smell,” she recalled. “And then this summer, I was smelling it when I would go out for a walk or on a run or go in my own backyard.”

That was in the summer when residents expected the odor to be at its worst. But in December, when residents like Johnson Bodine planned to have holiday parties with their families, the smell was stronger than ever.

“We had people over for Christmas Eve. We were setting up the backyard for dinner, but we were so worried about the smell, it was terrible,” Johnson Bodine remembered. “A lot of residents complained that they couldn’t have their families over. They were embarrassed.”

Last August it became…