Council OKs Ban on Gas-Powered Blowers

The roar of gas-powered leaf blowers may soon be quieted in Newport Beach, but the whine of electric blowers will remain.

Despite lackluster enthusiasm from supporters and warnings from opponents that it is a bad law, the City Council voted 4-3 Tuesday to ban gas-powered blowers in residential areas of the city. Dissatisfaction with the ordinance from council members on either side of the issue came, in part, from the exclusion of  electric leaf blowers in the ban.

"If you're against leaf blowers, you're against leaf blowers, and you ban leaf blowers ... if you're not, then you don't," Councilman Steven Rosansky said.

"I think the way the law is drafted now is poorly done and doesn't solve the problem," he said, "because you still have people with electric leaf blowers."

The ban on gas-powered blowers, which still needs final council approval at the May 10 meeting, is aimed at squelching noise and reducing the amount of dust and other particulates in the air. Homeowners associations would be able to opt out of the ban.

Rosansky, along with council members Edward Selich and Leslie Daigle, dissented.

"It's going to be un-enforceable," Selich said of the law.

Councilwoman Nancy Gardner, who during a tried to get electric blowers into the ban, said that leaving them out was a compromise and called the ordinance as it now stands a "first step."

"I'd be prefectly happy to go with both gas and electric," she said, "but we weren't getting the votes for that."

Mayor Mike Henn also said he would prefer that electric blowers to be included in the ban.

The ban on gas-powered blowers would go into affect six months after it gains final approval.