Leaf Blower Ban Backers Gird to Fight Bill

Opening a new chapter in the leaf blower controversy, City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski filed a motion Friday laying out Los Angeles’ counterattack on a state proposal seeking to lift the city’s new ban on gas-powered leaf blowers.

Labeling the bill a “direct and unjustified attack on home rule,” Miscikowski said she would call on other cities and the California League of Cities to join Los Angeles in the fight to keep its ban in place.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), is a response to the controversial new city ordinance that went into effect Feb. 13. It seeks to preempt municipal leaf-blower laws and replace them with a more lenient statewide standard.

Los Angeles is now enforcing its ban, which was enacted after repeated delays and over the impassioned protests of groups representing gardeners. Miscikowski has said recently that she was eager to move beyond the contentious issue and tackle other things.

But with Polanco’s bill presenting a new assault, Miscikowski said she will urge the city to seek help from other local jurisdictions that have passed rules regulating leaf blowers.

Supported by gardeners, leaf blower manufacturers and dealers, the bill would allow gas-powered leaf blowers until 2000, after which gardeners could use them only if they meet a maximum noise standard of 65 decibels, 50 feet away.

Polanco aide Bill Mabie said the goal is to give gardeners more time to adapt to the new rules, and said he expects unions to support the measure.

“What you have in California is tremendous precedent for working with businesses to establish new regulations,” Mabie said.

“But that doesn’t seem to be the case when you’re talking about gardeners who use leaf blowers.”

City officials argued that the state is trying to move in on territory that, under the state Constitution, is the purview of municipalities.

“As a charter city, we have power to regulate all local affairs,” said Tim McOsker, chief deputy city attorney, “ . . . and the health and safety of residents is a strong, municipal affair.”

McOsker said the state would have to show that regulating leaf blowers was an issue of statewide significance in order to preempt local laws.

The League of California Cities has not yet taken a stand on the bill, but expects to do so soon, said spokeswoman Julie Marengo. She indicated that the home-rule issue will probably come into play. “The league is typically opposed to legislation that dictates to what cities can and can’t do,” she said.

Anti-leaf blower activist Jack Allen promised his group, Zero Air Pollution, would “fight this tooth and nail. . . . We don’t think it’s the business of the state to worry about leaf blowers.”

Allen and other ban supporters argued that trying to regulate leaf blowers by decibel levels, as Polanco’s bill seeks to do, is useless in practice.

“The provisions are completely unenforceable,” Allen said. “To do a decibel test, you have to calibrate equipment first, and by the time you go through all this, and bring a sound engineer in, your guy is going to be gone.”

Mabie, Polanco’s aide, dismissed questions of whether the state has the power to intercede in the leaf blower issue, saying that state preemption of local laws has ample precedent.

Besides attempting to loosen municipal restrictions on leaf blowers, Polanco’s bill lays out a plan for development of a state-certification program for leaf blowers over the next two years aimed at regulating noise levels. It would also set up a trade-in program that includes a tax credit for gardeners.

Polanco aide Mabie said what’s at stake is fairness:

“If the government wanted to regulate oil refineries, they would probably give them five years to comply with the new rules,” he said. “But when you are talking about a poor gardener, they just ban their tools.”

Other lawmakers predict that Polanco will face opposition unless he can make a strong case that the issue is of overriding importance to the state, particularly if other cities join Los Angeles in opposing the bill.

“If Polanco can prove that it’s an overriding matter of state importance, then he has momentum,” said Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles). “But he has to demonstrate that local solutions have been attempted and failed.” The backing of other cities is key, lest the issue become fuel for already-simmering anti-L.A. sentiment in Sacramento, one lawmaker said.

Times staff writer Hugo Martin contributed to this story.