Mower Use Ban

Banning leaf blowers is nothing new, but Chevy Chase Village has taken things a step further by banning the use of all power landscaping equipment past 6 p.m. Residents will have to rush home from work to take care of their yards with this new ordinance that bans the use of lawn mowers, leaf blowers, motorized weed wackers, and other landscaping equipment between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. on weekdays and 6 p.m. and 9 a.m. on weekends.

This ordinance could actually be a blessing in disguise for professional landscape maintenance professionals, as residents have find themselves forced to hire a yard maintenance professional.

The Examiner quotes a representative of the landscaping industry as saying "this is the first ban of this kind that I have seen." D.C. and Montgomery County have restrictions against leaf blowers that exceed certain decibel levels, but we can't find anything on the books that applies to lawn mowers. And while there may be some homeowners associations that have similar restrictions, Chevy Chase Village is a municipality. So we're going to go ahead and rule the ban as being truly groundbreaking in the D.C.-area. Whether it's groundbreaking in the arena of excessive government rules depends on how much lawn mower noise annoys you.