Assembly Votes to Overturn Local Bans on Leaf Blowers

SACRAMENTO —  In a measure that sharply split Los Angeles lawmakers, the state Assembly on Wednesday approved a bill that would sweep away local leaf blower bans statewide.

The bill now heads to the state Senate, where President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) vowed to kill it.

The measure by Sen. Richard G. Polanco (D-Los Angeles) came in response to Los Angeles’ recent ban of noisy leaf blowers, a step that stirred gardeners to mount protests and a lobbying effort at the state Capitol.

They received support in Sacramento from Eastside lawmakers and several Republicans, while legislators from the Westside and many upper-income and rural areas opposed the effort to undermine the authority of cities to regulate noise from the machines.

Supporters of Polanco’s bill, which would limit the use of leaf blowers to normal business hours and allow some local restrictions on their noise, portrayed it as a fight between the haves and the have-nots--overly sensitive Westside homeowners vs. Latino gardeners.

Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) led the effort to win passage, declaring that the looser statewide standard embodied in Polanco’s bill would “preserve jobs for hard-working people.”

“[Local] government is going way too far,” added Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar), another proponent, who recalled that he used to help his father, a gardener. He called the Los Angeles ordinance a “direct assault” on working people.

The bill was approved 41 to 26, the minimum number of votes in the 80-seat house. It would let local government curb noise from leaf blowers louder than 65 decibels.

That’s roughly the level of noise from “a Mack truck” rolling down a residential street, said Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), one of the measure’s foes. Kuehl and other opponents also attacked the bill by noting that only one manufacturer, Echo Inc., makes leaf blowers meeting the 65-decibel threshold.

Polanco said at least two manufacturers make machines that meet the standard, and that the new standard would encourage leaf blower manufacturers to make quieter blowers.

Advocates of the ban said such reasoning ignores the fact that support for the bill also came from large landscapers, garden equipment distributors and the nation’s largest leaf blower manufacturer.

Polanco’s legislation would overturn garden blower restrictions in at least 18 other cities besides Los Angeles, including a ban in Carmel established two decades ago. Only Santa Barbara’s ban, passed by voters last November, would stand.

Although several members decried that they were taking up an issue they deemed a local matter, the debate turned emotional. Assemblywoman Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), insisting that the measure is not a “class issue,” said the blowers disturb elderly people and ill people who must rest at home.

That prompted Assemblyman Brett Granlund (R-Yucaipa) to contend that soon, some city might want to prohibit loud motorcycles because they “might wake up some welfare recipient taking a nap.”

In the upper house, Burton said he intends to detour the bill to the Rules Committee, which he controls, and kill it there.

“I’ve got five cities . . . in Marin against it,” he said. “I don’t think it passes.”