A father in California intended to spend a casual afternoon playing tennis with his children, but the situation quickly changed when park rangers questioned him about allegedly teaching lessons without a permit. Sam Dogen, a father of two from San Francisco, recounted the incident to Fox News Digital. He explained that he was practicing tennis with his 6-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son at Golden Gate Heights Park after returning from a family trip to Hawaii.

Dogen stated, “I took the kids out for what I thought would be a nice afternoon… to get over the jet lag, be outside in the sun and go play some tennis like we’ve done many times.” About 20 minutes into the session, two rangers from the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department approached him. They asked if he had a permit for teaching tennis.

“I was immediately thinking to myself, ‘What are you talking about? These are my kids,'” Dogen recalled.

According to Dogen, the confusion subsided only when one of his children clarified the situation by saying, “He’s my daddy.” The family was not penalized, but one ranger mentioned the potential $192 fine for teaching without a permit.

Dogen emphasized that while the meeting ended with a warning rather than a citation, he was puzzled as to why the interaction occurred at all. “There was nobody waiting,” he noted. “It was just a surprise to me. Why even bother trying to disrupt a perfectly nice afternoon, father with his children?”

The Recreation and Parks Department previously explained to The San Francisco Standard that rangers regularly verify whether individuals giving instruction on public courts are conducting business because paid instruction necessitates a permit. “This was a routine interaction,” department spokesperson Tamara Aparton stated. The rangers sometimes ask questions to discern if someone is offering commercial instruction or merely using the courts for personal use or coaching their kids.

While Dogen recognizes the importance of regulating commercial instruction, he argued that parents teaching their children should be handled differently. “Raising children in a city as expensive as San Francisco is hard enough,” Dogen told Fox News Digital. “When you add law enforcement officers who aren’t friendly, it gets even tougher.” His main concern was to ensure the encounter remained calm for the sake of his children.

“My only instinct was to de-escalate and keep my six-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son safe,” Dogen said. He jokingly suggested that he may carry his children’s birth certificates in the future to avoid similar confusion. “I’m going to get their birth certificates and carry them with me in my tennis bag just to prove they’re my children,” he humorously remarked. “I’m not going to get a permit to teach my children.”

Dogen expressed his hope that the incident would lead San Francisco officials to adopt a more family-friendly approach to enforcing park rules. “My hope is that San Francisco becomes a more welcoming place for children and families, not a place where a father teaching his own kids tennis on an empty court gets threatened with a $192 fine,” he concluded.