Sonoma leads the way with leaf-blower ban

Almost five years after the City of Sonoma approved a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers in a November 2016 special election, the State of California followed suit. Gov. Gavin Newsom last week signed into law a bill that would outlaw the use of gas-powered lawn equipment – aptly categorized as small off-road engines, or SORE.

Though Assembly Bill 1346 doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 2024, the Sonoma residents who fought first to get the City Council to implement a ban cheered its passage, albeit with misgivings.

“What bothers me about the state bill, as I read the broad strokes, is that the sale of these polluting noise-makers will be banned, but not the use of them,” Darryl Ponicsan told the Index-Tribune from his current Palm Springs home. “So it’s conceivable that they will go on doing their damage for another decade or so.”

Ponicsan, along with his wife, Cece, were among several locals who took an active role in arguing against leaf blowers before a sometimes indecisive, City Council. He repeatedly commented that it disturbed his work as a writer – he wrote “The Last Detail” in 1970 and its sequel, “Last Flag Flying,” while he lived in Sonoma. (He also wrote the novel “Eternal Sojourners” in 2019 which satirized Sonoma city politics.)

The manner in which Sonoma implemented its leaf blower ban was drawn-out. The Sonoma City Council first imposed restrictions on leaf blowers in 2011, forbidding their use on Sundays and observed holidays, and reducing the maximum allowed noise level to 70 decibels. Two years later the council initially approved a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, but at a subsequent meeting then-Mayor Ken Brown withdrew his support, and the ordinance was not confirmed.

The next spring, in March 2014, the council voted 3-2 to restrict gas-powered leaf blowers, though it exempted electric and battery-powered blowers which are significantly quieter, and don’t have the pollution issues that SORE machinery have.

But the late Jerry Marino, an independent-minded Sonoma businessman, led a petition to put the issue on the ballot. On Nov. 8, 2016, the referendum to ban gas-powered leaf blowers within the city limits, Measure V, won by the narrowest of margins, just 19 votes out of 6,337 votes cast. But it gave Sonoma bragging rights as one of the few jurisdictions in the state to pass such a measure.

At the time, it was hardly a popular position. City Councilmember Madolyn Agrimonti demonstrated her opposition to leaf blowers by joining CALM, Citizens Advocating for Leafblower Moderation, and remembers, “We were ridiculed for being against gas leaf blowers. Local gardening companies said people would be laid off because new equipment would hurt their bottom line.”

In particular she recalled appearing on the issue before other jurisdictions in the county. “I was at a meeting at Santa Rosa City Hall and we couldn’t hear the discussion due to the use of a gas blower,” Agrimonti emailed the Index-Tribune this week. “Mayor John Sawyer had to go outside to ask the gardener to stop until the meeting was over. Not being shy, I offered upon his return, ‘I make my point (regarding) gas leaf blowers.’”

While noise was a top-line issue for many residents, the issue of air pollution inspired the state’s ban. According to the Los Angeles Times, the new law will require all newly-sold small-motor equipment primarily used for landscaping to be zero-emission by the beginning of 2024. That would leave the market open to only battery-operated or plug-in machinery.

New portable gas-powered generators also must be zero-emission by 2028, though both bans could be delayed by the California Air Resources Board. Other small off-road engines covered by the ban include any engine that produces less than 25 gross horsepower, including lawn mowers, weed trimmers, chain saws, golf carts, specialty vehicles, generators and pumps.

Passage of AB 1346 was hardly unanimous, with most Republicans and some Democrats voting against it. It is still drawing fire from groups such as the National Association of Landscape Professionals, who fear that the cost to replace gas-powered machinery with new electric options would drive many small gardeners out of business. Similar warnings did not come to pass in Sonoma, however, though the local ordinance only applied within the relatively small borders of the 2.2-square-mile city.

However, the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Professional Practice Networks argues against the garden tools, and has published information from the state Air Resources Board that one hour of lawn mower use equates to the pollution from driving 300 miles, as far as Los Angeles to Las Vegas, while an hour’s use of a leaf blower equals 1,100 miles of driving, the equivalent of LA to Denver.

Ponicsan later took the fight to Palm Springs, where he and his wife had split their time until moving there fulltime during the pandemic. He said that effort was much easier: “The Palm Springs Sustainability Commission got behind it right away, and every time I spoke at the council meeting there was applause.”

The desert city passed the ordinance with a two-year buy-back and phase-in period, and it became an ordinance in June, 2019. “I would never choose to live in a town that did not have that ordinance,” said Ponicsan.

Agrimonti applauded Sonoma’s prescient ban on leaf blowers. “Sonoma was ahead of the curve re approval of our strong no smoking ordinance,” she said. “In addition, we were also ahead with our ordinance against flavored vaping and flavored cigarettes to protect adolescents.”

The mayor added, “I’m considering discussing banning menthol cigarettes.”

Email Christian Kallen at christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.