Westlake’s Leaf-Blower Lobby Makes Ban Unlikely

Most homeowners and officials in Westlake Village apparently believe that gasoline-powered leaf blowers are as much a public necessity as a public nuisance in their greenbelt-laced city.

Rather than banning the leaf blowers, as some residents urged, City Council has proposed merely restricting the hours when the machines can be operated and requiring that the noise from them be limited.

City Council members began backing away from a total blower ban last week after learning that more than two-thirds of the affluent city’s 3,000 homeowners employ gardeners, who consider the backpack-operated machines just as important as lawn mowers.

Some gardeners had warned Westlake Village residents that lawn-maintenance costs could nearly double if workers were forced to replace their blowers with old-fashioned rakes.

Complaints of Noise

Council members had been considering an anti-blower law since July, when homeowner Peg Hansen submitted a petition signed by 18 neighbors complaining of noise and dust from the machines.

“Gardeners come from Thousand Oaks, Simi and Moorpark. Are we to let them set the standards for our city?” Hansen asked.

But gardener Wesley Kaname Koyano of Thousand Oaks retaliated with a pro-blower petition signed by 67 of his Westlake Village customers. Other gardeners’ customers protested the threat to the blowers in letters to council members.

Homeowner E. A. Dyer said blower dust was something “that can be dealt with through careful and responsible action” by gardeners. Resident James J. Docherty said the blower noise was “lower than some mowers I’ve heard.”

On Monday night, the council proposed an ordinance under which the leaf-blowers could be operated only from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The ordinance would also require gardeners to operate the machines at their least powerful--and most quiet--levels.

The council scheduled a vote on the proposed ordinance Oct. 8.

Hansen said Tuesday that she will continue the effort to rid the small city of the machines.

But city officials said that, when they polled Westlake Village’s 14 homeowner associations on the issue, they learned that a narrow majority opposed controls on leaf blowers: five opposed the ban, four were in favor and the rest had no position or representatives could not be reached.

“While we are blessed with a lovely environment of hundreds of oak trees, we are also the recipients of many tons of fallen leaves through the year,” said Kay Martin, secretary of the Oak Forest Homeowners Assn. “Rakes can’t clean off roofs like blowers.”

Debris in Lake

Council members agreed with homeowners who complain that the machines occasionally blow debris into the city’s centerpiece, Westlake Lake, and fill neighborhoods with dust and noise--described in a city report as almost as loud as a chain saw.

Under the proposed ordinance, gardeners would have to blow leaves away from the lake, and debris that gathers near the shore would have to be raked into piles and gathered by hand.