City Turns Maximum Profit on Miniature Golf : Recreation: Officials say increased earnings at Sherman Oaks Castle Park are due to more security guards, a family-friendly ambience and hands-on management.

Conventional wisdom says that the less government intrudes on business, the better business does.

But that axiom doesn’t hold true for Sherman Oaks Castle Park, a city-owned miniature golf and recreation center that the city began to operate six months ago, after ending a private firm’s lease.

Since the city of Los Angeles jumped into the miniature golf business, big profits have been par for the course.

In the first three months under the city’s management, the park generated about $250,000 in profits, compared to $120,000 the city gained during the same period last year from the private firm.

The city’s newfound success with Sherman Oaks Castle is attributed not only to its hands-on management of the center but also to a $100,000 face lift undertaken in April to attract more families.

“It’s a changed ambience,” said Julio Lazarte, a manager at the park for the city’s Recreation and Parks Department. “It’s more colorful. It brings more families.”

The park, located on Sepulveda Boulevard near the San Diego Freeway, offers three 18-hole miniature golf courses, nine batting cages and more than 100 video games. For years, it had been operated by Malibu Grand Prix under a lease from the city. But that ended in April when the city ended the lease and closed the park for renovations.

Officials at the city’s Recreation and Parks Department said the city decided not to renew the longtime lease because Malibu Grand Prix had allowed the facility to deteriorate and tolerated loitering teen-agers who frightened off families.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, whose district includes the recreation center, said he used to frequent the center with his 11-year-old son, David, until the park fell into disrepair.

But now that it has been renovated, Yaroslavsky said he was not surprised by the higher profits, although he himself has not yet returned.

In this case, Yaroslavsky said, the city may have found an operation it can manage better than private business. “I hope this is a trend for the future and not just a one-quarter aberration,” he said.

Steve Klippel, chief financial officer of the city’s Recreation and Parks Department, said he believes the increased profits are primarily due to the fact that the city now keeps the hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual profits that would have gone to Malibu Grand Prix.

In other words, he said: “No middleman.”

But even the gross revenues are 10% above what they were under the private management, said Robert Tanowitz, a parks manager.

Klippel said the city will continue running the park for a year before deciding whether to stay in the miniature golf business for good. If it works out, he said, the city may even consider operating other similar money-making concessions.

But Klippel also gave some credit for the increased profits to the park’s $100,000 face lift.

New green and red artificial grass was installed on the golf fairways. The interior was repainted and additional security guards now roam the complex, shooing away loiterers. New cushioned chairs replaced old metal chairs at the snack bar, while tired first-generation video games were replaced with new titles such as “Super Street Fighter II” and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s latest adventure, “Turtles in Time.”

On a recent visit, a sound system blared Lionel Richie and Diana Ross singing “Endless Love” out to the golf course.

In short, it’s a place where even parents can hang.

“Cleanliness is definitely a noticeable difference,” said Ian Simms of Calabasas, as he and his son, Richard, 14, prepared to tee off on hole 7 of the golf course, a hole on an incline that requires a bank shot off a V-shaped obstacle.

The younger Simms agreed with his father’s assessment. “It seems like it has better quality overall,” Richard Simms said.

For Christopher Clark, 9, of Lake View Terrace, the improvements to the golf course give the center a whole new look. “It seems bigger to me,” he said as took aim on hole 8, an uphill hole at the end of a doglegged fairway.

He made the par 3 as his father, Cecil, and two sisters, Stephanie, 7, and Pam, 11, looked on.

Max Goldblatt and his buddy Cliff Olin, both 10, said they noticed the new ambience but were much more interested in a new bowling game that rewards good players with tickets that can be traded in for gifts.

After spending $10 in tokens and playing about 35 minutes on the machine, Max and Cliff spread out their bounty of tickets on a table and speculated about the gifts they could get with their 320 tickets.

But when Max and Cliff went to trade in their tickets at the prize counter, the best they could get were two stuffed dolls.

They both walked away with a shrug.