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Spurred by popular demand, the Palo Alto City Council voted on Monday to ramp up enforcement of the city’s long-standing and often-ignored ban on gas-powered leaf blowers.
By a 5-2 vote, with Greg Tanaka and Vicki Veenker dissenting, council members voted to raise fines for violation of the leaf blower ban and to eliminate an existing rule that requires the city’s code enforcement officer to observe a violation twice, at least five days apart, before issuing a citation. In a separate vote, the council unanimously agreed to specify in the zoning code that it’s not just the operators of the noisy devices but also the homeowners and property managers who hire them that can be subject to penalties.
The Monday votes were the latest effort by the city to respond to years of complaints by residents about the air- and noise-pollution impacts of gas-powered leaf blowers, which have been illegal in residential neighborhoods since 2005. To the consternation of many, the ban had been largely left unenforced until last year, when the city added a code enforcement officer position dedicated to addressing the problem. The new code enforcement officer, Craig Hartley, began his new job 10 months ago and has been meeting with neighbors and gardeners about the city’s leaf blower ban. His efforts have apparently paid off, with some residents reporting that the situation has gotten considerably better in recent months.
“Before the council took action on leaf blower enforcement recently, all my neighbors in all directions used gasoline leaf blowers,” said Matthew Lennig, who lives on Lois Lane. “But once the city deployed the leaf blower code inspector, it was only a matter of weeks before my neighbors switched to electric. This has significantly improved my quality of life.”
But even with increased staffing, the current law hampers the city’s ability to enforce the ban, according to the city. A chief obstacle is a requirement that after a zoning violation is reported and observed, the person committing the violation must be given a five-day notice to comply with law. They would only get cited if after that five-day period, the city observes them committing a violation yet again, a highly unlikely occurrence given the short duration of many landscaping jobs. As a result, the city is aware of only three citations being issued for this violation, all in the past six weeks.
“We have not been very successful in being able to catch a subsequent violation taking place in order to cite the violator of that provision,” Planning Director Jonathan Lait said at Monday night’s meeting.
Helene Grossman, who led the charge last year in lobbying for more enforcement of the leaf-blower ban, was part of a group of residents who testified Monday about the disruption that the devices cause. Last year, more than 200 residents signed her petition asking the city to crack down on gas-powered leaf blowers.
“When I’m working from home and I want to open my window to get fresh air, I can nearly always hear a gas-leaf blower off in the distance if not in that moment than 10 or 20 minutes later,” Grossman said. “If I try to work on the deck in my backyard, same thing.
“I join the meeting and it’s quiet and then within 15 minutes, I hear a gas leaf blower somewhere and it forces me back inside.”
Some residents pushed the council to go further by extending the ban to commercial zones, banning all leaf blowers (not just the gas-powers) or both. David Coale, an environmental advocate, was one of several who touted the virtues of raking leaves over blowing them. Gardeners often use leaf blowers in inappropriate places and blow away leaf litter that should be left underneath plants and that creates mulch, humus and habitats for insects and small organisms.
“Using an electric leaf blower instead of a gas one is kind of like driving your Tesla half a block to the post office instead of driving your SUV,” Coale said. “Using a rake is much more suited to the job.”
While the council opted not to move ahead with a full-on ban on leaf blowers, members indicated that they would be willing to consider a citywide ban on gas-powered leaf blowers. They unanimously agreed to direct the council’s Policy and Services Committee to explore a potential citywide ban, which would then return to the full council for consideration and possible adoption. Vice Mayor Greer Stone was among those who said he would support expanding it in favor of expanding the ban on gas-powered leaf blowers to city properties and nonresidential zones.
“If it’s good enough to have that ban in the residential zones, we should treat ourselves the same way,” Stone said.
Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims also said she would support an expansion of the ban, calling it a matter of equity.
“Poor people are likely to live in more dense housing, which is likely to be near industrial and commercial (zones),” she said. “So they’re more likely to be hearing the blowers that have been banned from single-family neighborhoods.”
There was less support for banning leaf blowers entirely. City staff noted that the devices are often needed to clear leaves in parks and open spaces. It’s one thing to rake a driveway; it’s another to rake Foothills Park or the playground at Rinconada Park.
Veenker said she would be hesitant to ban electric leaf blowers in residential zones, as some have suggested. A gardener herself, Veenker called raking “hard work,” particularly for older residents.
“As gardeners age, it is something to be taken into account, whether it’s more difficult for them to stay in the field,” Veenker said.
The council was mostly united in its focus on adding teeth to the existing ban in the short term and on considering an expanded ban in the longer term. The biggest point of contention was on whether there should still be a noticing period for operators of gas-powered leaf blowers. Under the new system, property owners who are not at home at the time of the violation would still receive a notice of violation on the doorstep, informing them of the ban and potential penalties if they get caught again. Operators of the devices, meanwhile, could get cited immediately without warning.
Veenker and Tanaka voted to retain the five-day warning period for everyone involved in the violation, particularly in the early days of the stepped-up enforcement. The rest of the council felt that doing so would keep the current law relatively toothless. Though they voted 5-2 to remove the five-day noticing requirement, council members agreed to further discuss the issue of who should be held responsible for violations at a future date, when planning staff returns with an ordinance changing the zoning laws.
Council members also voted to increase fines to $250 for the first violation, $500 for the second and $1,000 for all subsequent violations. That’s up from the current level of $100 for the first violation, $150 for the second and $300 for the third. Tanaka was the only council member who objected to the higher penalties and suggested that the fine increase be limited to 10%.
“The penalty is not commensurate with the offense,” Tanaka said. “It just seems outrageously large to me.”
Other council members suggested that the higher penalties are appropriate and pointed to the heightened awareness across the state about the harm of gas-powered leaf blowers. State lawmakers had also passed a law in 2021 banning sales of new gas-powered leaf blowers starting in 2024.
Council member Pat Burt said one idea that the city can explore is banning all leaf blowing on city property, including streets. He also advocated for a broader culture change toward recognizing the value of leaves.
“We love our trees and somehow we hate our leaves,” Burt said. “And leaves are not litter. They have never historically been viewed as litter except for a few people who really had a fetish over immaculate gardens. But most of us — we don’t need this. Leaves create mulch. They can be beautiful.”
My yard is full of drought tolerant succulents and raking is impossible. I haven’t had a lawn in decades, but I’ve had to hand rake (or pick by hand) leaves from birch trees, magnolia tree, a dying oak tree, and others. Without a leaf blower, my 7500 square foot lot (more lot than house) would be a cemetery for many of my succulents.
Thank you, City Council. Very good to see you engaged in the issue, after 17 years of non-enforcement. And thank you for removing the “5-day to check for compliance” rule, that renders the legislation for all practical purposes unenforceable. And kudos to Sheyner for fine reporting.
I’d like to suggest two things:
(1) BOTH homeowners and gardeners be held responsible and fined for violations. Both need to be cited immediately. The proposed fines are large enough to get the attention of homeowners and discourage violators, which is the object of the legislation.
(2) It makes sense to extend the ban on gas-powered blowers to commercial zones, but not to parks.
I have no lawns at all, but a lot of leaves and debris since my garden was designer conceived to provide shade in the summer with many trees, light and sun in the winter and low maintenance few plantings and many large pots of low water plants. I will not rake because I’m old and sick and a job that takes my gardener 5 minutes will take an hour or more and 10 times the price It will not will not work at all for me. Cut all my trees and pave? The solution might be a more reasonable one : set up on way day a week of garden work with electrical blowers and the city only sets that day. All gardeners come the same day and the other 6 days are we are blower free. Those who look for an ideal solution will be surprised by the foreseen and unforeseen consequences of being impossibly strict.
Life in a city has to be balanced and the perspectives of other also considered.
I too like lack of noisy but this is a city. Electric blowers? I’m all for it. Wanting a back breaking impossibly expensive gardening? Unworkable.
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That’s great news that the city will enforce the gas leaf blower ban. And fining homeowners as well as the gardeners, or even instead of the gardeners, is the way to go. Right now, homeowners can claim ignorance, or just avoid talking to their gardeners, but if the fine comes to them, I’ll bet they’ll have their gardeners switch to electric in no time.
And even better, leave the leaves, or rake them!
It all sounds fine on paper but you must realize that the people who will bear the brunt of this ruling are the workers who cannot afford to buy new equipment and probably none of whom live in Palo Alto. They also might be ignorant of the law. I believe that a warning should be issued, once, to notify these working people of Palo Alto’s intent. We have offered to help pay for new equipment for our gardener and hopefully he will also ask the other people he works for for some financial help. Let the City Council put their money where their mouths are and help defray some of these costs.
There are lots of problems here. In fact, many gardeners may choose to stay away from Palo Alto altogether, others start charging even more, and many will choose to allow their yards turn into a pile of weeds and leaves and never touched at all. Not everyone has the money to pay for more expense of a gardener taking twice as long. Not everyone has the strength to rake their own leaves. Not everyone has a lawn, but have lots of pots and raised flower beds that would make raking impossible.
As for electric, where will they be charged? How long does it take for a full charge?
I have no real interest in bans of any type. I do feel this might be cutting off the nose to spite our faces.
Hey Bystander, do you enjoy being outside when the horrible fumes and noise from gas leaf blowers waft through the neighborhood? No one does, and the gardeners bear the brunt of the ill effects. If you really need a gardener, and can’t afford a penny more for his time, pay him to do what he can in the same amount of time – you don’t need to remove every single leaf from your property.
Palo Alto is not the only city in the area to ban leaf blowers, and their sale in all of California is banned as of July 1, 2024, so no matter what we’re at the beginning of the end of these awful devices.
This is such a ridiculous first-world issue. Have some tolerance, Palo Altans. I work remotely and the leave blowing is about 10 minutes per house and not every day. When I lived in the midwest, people would mow their large lawns on the weekends, equating to hearing lawn mowers all day long because they could be a block away from the house yet the noise travels and mowing a large lawn can take 30 minutes. As soon as one would stop, another would begin. No peaceful or relaxing weekend to be had.
How about all the trespassing dogs pooping on our properties and at the school grounds while the owners leave the poop or take it but still leave residue on the lawn? That’s more of a nuisance, the students step in the poop and take it to the classroom, it’s a health issue. I saw a dog defecating on an elementary school kindergarten lawn in the morning while everyone was arriving to school. Oh, but that is okay because Palo Altans need to have their dogs? It’s okay if a child’s bare hand touches the poop or the poop residue?
What was worse was the 200 planes flying over Palo Alto from 2014 to 2020. Every 3 minutes, a plane overhead so loud that the TV cannot drown it out . . . which seems to have subsided. Did they change the routes?
@sequoiadean
We do our own yard work and use a mower on the grass and an electric blower for the roof area.
We walk around outside and when we come across a gardener with a blower we find that they politely stop until we have passed and we thank them. There is more noise from the many lots with construction and get as much pollen and dust from the many tree trimmers as they do their work and rarely stop as we walk by.
I am not saying these things aren’t annoying, but they are not as bad as the smoke coming from chimneys or back yard fire pits which happen in both winter and summer evenings often way into the late hours.
Should chimneys and outside fire pits be banned also?
Most Palo Alto residents can afford to buy an electric leaf blower for their gardener. Problem solved. Some have already done so.
@Rose, yes I will accept that buying an electric blower, keeping it charged, and then asking your gardener to use it is a good solution for each home owner. The gardener then will have to use a different model in each residence, but it can be done.
If I didn’t do my own yard work (with an electric blower), I would be happy to purchase one for any gardener to use on our house. The cost is probably no more than a month or two of landscape service. We don’t need noisy, grossly polluting, two stroke gas engines anywhere near where we and our children live.
City Council is putting a ban on the use of gas powered leaf blowers but we can still purchase them in the community. Parts, oil mix, and gasoline as well as gasoline containers are still easily purchased. No background check, training, or age requirement for purchase. We can even have them shipped to our homes. Pretty easy to ban something but much harder to follow thru.
I find it a bit precious that Palo Alto has an employee dedicated solely to enforcing the leaf blower ban. Still, it might be amusing to see the reaction of people when the person explains what they do for a living.
I bought an electric blower for my gardener (didn’t cost that much), and he uses it with no complaints.
I am encouraged by the opening phrase of this article. Spurred by popular demand. Is this a sign that the new CC is going to take a page out of Biden’s book and “finish the job”? If yes, we have many things to look forward to.
No doubt we could all write our own list. Mine includes maintaining effective staffing in PAFD and PAPD, repurposing of unused commercial buildings, a reliable electrical grid, fully open libraries, a focus on what’s in the best interest of Palo Alto and its residents, access to the City Manager, right-sizing of the CM’s office, an end to shenanigans regarding the timing of the disclosure of budget information, financial decisions that are reflective of current economic realities, and pushback on state mandates that are not funded and that overlook serious realities such as infrastructure deficits.
Annette, my list would be based on serving residents’ needs and infrastructure that makes life better for us on an everyday basis. To get rid of red tape with permits and inspections so that residents who remodel can get these necessary applications done in a timely manner. To put efficient traffic flow as a priority rather than roadblocks that cause gridlock and to make parking in downtown a simple process rather than the confused mess that is hard to understand.
Bring back common sense, they are to serve the residents not to make life more difficult.
I will buy an electric leaf blower and keep it charged for my gardener. I also heartily agree with Pat Burt. Leave some leaves! Especially as we eliminate lawns the bushes and plants Maybe there should be a ban on blowing in streets and sidewalks. Just get the bulk with a rake. Not much time involved.
The CC is finally enforcing regulations based on serving residents needs. In this case, relief from two stroke pollution and noise. I know for a fact that everyone of y neighbors could easily afford to purchase and maintain battery powered landscaping equipment for their gardeners. Judging from the Teslas in their driveways. It is just ignorance that allows them to hire gardeners who mow and blow.
Two stroke engines are like cigarettes, past time for them to go.
The CC is finally enforcing regulations based on serving residents needs. In this case, relief from two stroke pollution and noise. I know for a fact that everyone of y neighbors could easily afford to purchase and maintain battery powered landscaping equipment for their gardeners. Judging from the iTeslas in their driveways. It is just ignorance that allows them to hire gardeners who mow and blow.
Two stroke engines are like cigarettes, past time for them to go.
Our gardener was resistant to using an electric blower for our corner lot until we showed them our two outdoor electric sockets. We pay for the electricity and they don’t have to pay for the gas. They manage a very long extension cord with ease and have no concerns about recharging batteries.