Ban the Blower?

Leaves drop silently, stealthily from trees, disturbing nothing. They form a colorful carpet on lawns and streets, even in Southern California, not the territory people think of when they think of fall color.

Then come the leaf blowers. Forget silence. Think earplugs.

One advantage of working in an office is being away from home when the gardeners sweep through the neighborhood with their gasoline-powered leaf blowers, shattering the quiet and stirring up the dust. Of course, gardeners work weekends as well, so there is no guarantee that the day of rest will not be disturbed by a device as loud as a chain saw, making further sleep impossible.

The Orange County Grand Jury this year proposed its solution: Ban leaf blowers. So far only one city in the county has agreed--Laguna Beach. But even there, violators are warned, not fined. City workers may not use the machines, but private gardeners do so despite the law.

The best solution would be for the manufacturers of blowers to work more diligently to make the machines quieter. There has been some progress on this front, but not enough.

Homeowners are free to stop their gardeners from using the blowers, requiring that leaves be raked up instead. But that takes longer, which means it should be done only if the client is willing to pay more.

Irvine considered a ban, but opted instead for setting limits on noise levels, requiring owners of blowers to register the machines, for $25 each, and having operators take a one-hour class on blower use and etiquette. The etiquette should be simple: Use them only during daylight hours, and even then starting well after the crack of dawn.

For the past two years, state legislators have tried to get a ban on local ordinances regulating the machines. But surely this is a case where local wisdom is best. What works for Laguna Beach may not work for Huntington Beach, which like many cities has decided to restrict hours and noise levels.

And given California’s perennial shortages of water, no one should try to substitute a hose for a leaf blower. Learn to live with the noise, or agitate for quieter machines. Of course there’s always the super-quiet leaf-removal tool: the homeowner’s rake.