Residents Call For Year-Round Gas-Powered Leaf Blower Ban In Southampton Village

In April 2019, in response to an avalanche of complaints from residents, Southampton Village enacted a ban on the use of gas-powered leaf blowers during the summer months, from May 20 to September 20.

At a Village Board meeting on January 13, several residents were back to express a desire to see that ban extended to year-round status.

Penelope Wright read a letter imploring the board to enact a year-round ban, and she said she easily collected the signatures of 50 other residents in support of a 12-month restriction as well.

Residents who chimed in on the matter during the public comment portion of the January 13 meeting expressed several reasons why they wanted to see the ban extended.

Brothers Ben and Orson Cummings called the leaf blower debate “the only issue more popular than traffic,” and said they were in support of a year-round ban because the noise from gas-powered leaf blowers diminishes their quality of life and makes it difficult to focus on their jobs as writers who work from home.

“There are often anywhere from three to six blowers working in tandem outside our door,” Orson Cummings said. “We can’t think straight and enjoy our lives.”

Others who shared their thoughts brought up concerns about the impact of the gas-powered blowers, saying they were not only bad for the environment, but were likely detrimental to the health of the workers operating them.

Kimberly Allan, a former Village Board member, expressed her frustration that the village had not yet taken the steps to enact a year-round ban despite continued entreaties from residents to do so.

“You’ve received hundreds of emails and letters and you’ve done nothing,” she said. “What’s taking so long?”

Extending the ban on gas-powered leaf blowers from seasonal to year-round is a measure that has been publicly supported by several board members, including Joe McLoughlin and Roy Stevenson.

On Friday, Mayor Jesse Warren shared his thoughts on the matter and tried to answer some of the questions raised by members of the public who wanted to know what the obstacles were to enacting a year-round ban. He said he was happy to see the residents come to the meeting and speak, and pointed out that Southampton Village was one of the earliest adopters of a partial ban, which paved the way for other municipalities, such as the Village of North Haven, to follow suit.

“There’s a lot to be considered,” he said. “We would like to get together with various advocates who might be opposed to it and to come together and come up with some type of solution for any additional laws.

“Quality of life is really important,” Warren added. “You’d be hard-pressed to find anybody who likes listening to the noise. We’re going to get to work to see if there’s something we can do to further improve the situation.”

When asked to further explain what roadblocks are currently standing in the way of enacting a year-round ban, Warren acknowledged that several landscapers have said they would oppose an extension on the current ban, but he said that was not necessarily the biggest issue.

“A lot are pretty happy with the current legislation,” he said, speaking of landscape company owners. “The biggest issue we have is enforcement. If we were to adopt a year-round ban, we would have to step up enforcement.”

The village’s citizen reporting effort, “See, Click, Fix,” which was unveiled in April 2021, would be part of the equation, he said, but staying on top of any complaints would be vital to enforcing the law.

Warren also pointed out that in order to comply with a year-round ban, landscapers would likely need to add to their inventory of electric powered blowers, which could potentially be a challenge while the pandemic-fueled supply chain disruption is still an ongoing issue. But Warren did point out that the village has been a leader in enacting laws restricting the use of gas-powered blowers and said the village remains committed to listening to the concerns of residents.

“The bottom line is that a lot of people have expressed that they’re in support of further reduction,” he said, adding that the increase in the number of people working from home and people moving to the area because of the pandemic has made the issue even more prevalent.

While there are no municipalities locally that have yet enacted a year-round ban, there is legislation being passed that signals more bans on gas powered blowers in the future. In October 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law that would ban the sale of gas-powered lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and chainsaws as early as 2024, according to the L.A. Times.

As far as the next steps for Southampton Village, Warren said he’d like to set up some kind of public forum to discuss the issue and hear from people on both sides of the debate, in the hope of coming up with a solution that would be “ideal for everybody.”