Blower Bans Are Blowing in the Wind

Big Blow Off: At least 44 California cities restrict or ban the use of gas-powered leaf blowers. More municipalities across the country are pondering restrictions.

Saturday morning can be beautiful-a person can wake up, turn over and snooze a bit more, not having the prospect of fighting traffic and getting to work on time. Many weekend sleepers, however, have trouble enjoying that small pleasure, what with the invariable, uncalled-for wakeup call of leaf blowers.

Many communities across the country have laws limiting leaf blower use. Some 44 California cities restrict their use. Berkeley, Calif., no stranger to activism, banned gas leaf blowers altogether in 1990, and the 90210 haut community (Beverly Hills) followed suit. Other cities have instituted partial bans, like Mamaroneck, N.Y, which forbids the use of gas-powered leaf blowers from June 1 to Sept. 30.

More and more communities are joining in. Just this October the Vancouver City Council voted to ban leaf blowers in the city's West End; stateside, the Chapel Hill, N.C. town council proposed a similar ban.

Clearly people are fed up with noise, and some are concerned about the pollution of the small gas engines. The EPA estimates that the small gas engines, like the ones used by leaf blowers, are responsible for 10 percent of the nation's hydrocarbon emissions.

But where there is a complete ban on the blowers, as in Berkeley, landscapers say they've had to hire more groundskeepers to make up for the loss of efficiency of the leaf blowers.