On a split vote, the Sonoma City Council took a controversial stand against gas-powered leaf blowers Monday night and approved the first reading of an ordinance that will ban all leaf blowers powered by internal combustion engines, as well as the use of gas or diesel-powered generators to run electric leaf blowers. Electric-powered leaf blowers, per se, were not affected.
In an additional clause, the council decreed that no leaf blower “shall be operated in a manner that directs dust and debris onto any neighboring parcel.”
The 3-to-2 vote in favor of banning gas blowers followed more than an hour of public comment and council debate, during which 24 people stepped to the podium, almost half opposed to the ban. Thirteen people expressed support for it, although one of them, Karen Barto, described a personal negotiation she had with her landscaping company after which “they switched to a rake and we were fine.”
Landscapers who testified, unanimously opposed the ordinance, claiming it would drive up costs and necessitate an expensive investment in electric-powered blowers.
Craig Martin, a Sonoma landscaper with “a two-man business – myself and my son,” warned the council that conversion to electric blowers would cost more than $2,000.
And Paul Gorce, a Third Street West resident who is not a landscaper, nevertheless blistered the council for even considering the ban. “I’m getting tired of people telling me I can’t do this and I can’t do that. Next it will be chain saws and chippers, lawn mowers … you’re going to cost people a lot of money, especially these people who go around cleaning up lawns and lots …”
At the other end of the spectrum was Georgia Kelly, founder of the Praxis Peace Institute, who recently returned from a month in Europe where, “I didn’t hear a leaf blower the whole time.” Kelly, a Sonoma resident, reported watching municipal workers in a large European city park raking leaves, and said she supports “a total ban on all leaf blowers. Electric blowers blow the same amount of dust, pollen and fecal matter up our noses and who knows where else.”
Allen Olinger, an eastside Sonoma resident, countered that his landscaper comes one day a week to service four or five houses, leaves no debris in the street and is gone within two hours.
He criticized a “self-appointed group (who) want to put offenders in jail – it’s just crazy. It’s ‘my way or the highway,’ Neighbors like these didn’t really work out too well for Anne Frank,” he said.
But for Broadway resident Rick Suerth, who said he works from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. in his home office and takes numerous conference calls two days a week, nearby leaf blowers are often so loud, “sometimes I have to take calls in the bathroom. I don’t want to put these guys out of business, but I don’t want to be put out of business either.”
And Darryl Ponicsan, the screenwriter and novelist who spearheaded the campaign against gas blowers and writes in a backyard office bordered by four other residences that all employ leaf blowers, decried the “aggression, threats and name calling” from opponents of the ban.
Ponicsan said he recently had surgery and “would have preferred another day of recovery.” But the following day, “I had four leaf blowers outside. I went out and talked to each one, and showed them my small electric blower that works just as well as gas … let’s rid this town of a clear and present nuisance.”
He then submitted a petition with 301 signatures supporting the ban.
The cost of alternative methods of leaf and debris removal have long been part of the banning debate. City Public Works staff have estimated the cost of converting to battery-powered, backpack blowers at about $10,000. And an additional expense could be incurred if the contractors who maintain eight of the city’s 16 parks and two senior apartment complexes raise their rates in response to the ban.
Whether or not alternative means of leaf and debris removal are really less efficient and more expensive remains an open question. Opponents of gas blowers point out that somewhere between 18 and 30 California cities have already imposed such a ban (the number and nature of bans are imprecisely compiled) with no reports of increased cost or landscapers driven out of business.
Famous among ban proponents is the 1998 story of a Los Angeles-area grandmother in her 50s named Diane Wolfberg who competed with rake and broom against both electric and gas-powered mowers in a series of tests to see which device was fastest and most thorough. Wolfberg was judged cleanest of all three efforts and nearly as fast as the gas-powered blower in cleaning a 100-square-foot patio, a 50-foot grassy slope and a 30-foot concrete ramp.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: