Council Lightens Leaf-Blower Penalties

In a small victory for gardeners, a group of whom had marched barefoot on City Hall, the Los Angeles City Council lightened the penalties Wednesday for using gasoline-powered leaf-blowers in residential areas, but voted to enforce its legal ban on the machines beginning Jan. 6.

Voting 9 to 5 before a raucous, standing-room-only crowd, the council agreed to knock down violations from a misdemeanor to an infraction, significantly reducing the penalty for violating the ordinance.

Offenders will now be subject to fines and fees totaling $270, compared to the previous penalty of fines up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail.

The decision capped months of public debate that pitted an angry band of working-class gardeners against equally outraged residents from posh enclaves on the Westside, including a handful of celebrities. The council outlawed the blowers last year, but delayed enforcement to iron out details.

On Wednesday, the gardeners renewed their opposition to the law and urged the council to phase out the blowers over five years.

“We recognize that the leaf-blowers make noise. We have never denied that,” said Adrian Alvarez, spokesman for the Assn. of Latin American Gardeners.

But an immediate ban “is not the solution when you deprive people of a fundamental tool” in earning a living, said Alvarez, who added that his colleagues would ignore the law and continue their campaign with a hunger strike and even “civil disobedience.”

But actress Julie Newmar, the Catwoman on the “Batman” television series, urged the council to stand firm. “It isn’t that you people don’t have character and integrity,” she said. “It’s just hard to see beyond the voting cards.”

The ban prohibits use of leaf-blowers within 500 feet of a residence. Council members also agreed to set up an education program and a complaint hotline.

But they rejected the phase-in plan proposed by Councilman Richard Alarcon, which would also have required permits for leaf-blowers and restricted their use to specified times of the day. Alarcon argued that a gradual ban would cushion the blow to gardeners and force manufacturers to come up with quieter, cleaner machines.

“Some believe a sudden shift is good, and some [of us] believe we should see the social implications” of the city’s actions, he said.

So far, the implications have already included wry looks at Los Angeles from national publications like the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, which ridiculed the city’s failure to get on with enforcing the ban, despite celebrity pleas from Newmar, Peter Graves of “Mission: Impossible” and Meredith Baxter of “Family Ties.” Still at issue is exactly how police will patrol for scofflaws, in addition to other duties.

“I just know that [the police] do not want this ordinance,” Alarcon said, although an LAPD spokesman said the department had not taken a position on the issue. “It’s going to be very difficult for them to enforce.”

But Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, whose district includes affluent sections of West Los Angeles and the western San Fernando Valley, said any further delays or a phased-in approach would violate the spirit of the ban approved last year, which Alarcon supported. Miscikowski noted that the issue has embroiled the City Council in controversies of one form or another for more than a decade, ample time for gardeners and manufacturers to gird for changes.

“If the council can’t keep the faith with what it did a year ago . . . I don’t know how anyone out there in the public can rely on what we say we will do five years from now,” she said.

It was Miscikowski’s predecessor, Marvin Braude, an ardent environmentalist, who led the move against leaf-blowers. After he retired last year, momentum slowed, and a moratorium prevented the ban from going into effect.

Since then, the Latin American gardeners’ group has organized into a large force that marched on City Hall last month and garnered the support of the council’s three Latino members, Alarcon, Mike Hernandez and Richard Alatorre, all of whom spoke out against an immediate prohibition.

“I saw the council work with HMOs. We were exempting them in essence from paying $18 million in taxes,” Hernandez said, referring to a tax break the council approved for the city’s health-maintenance organizations two weeks ago.

But here the city was penalizing working-class residents, Hernandez said. “Are we consistent?” he asked.

Council members Rudy Svorinich and Rita Walters also voted against the ban.