Letters

Scourge: a person or thing that causes great suffering, affliction or misery.

The latest from our local government is that they’re not going to ban gas-powered leaf blowers, because they can’t enforce the law. This is backward thinking. First comes the law, and then comes enforcement.

As it is now, my neighbors can use that blower nine hours a day, six days a week. And they do. And I have no rights. If there was a law, I would have the right to tell them that what they were doing was unlawful, and I would have the law on my side.

Last summer, I did tell a few people that their gas-powered leaf blowing was illegal, and that someone could call the police on them, and they could be fined. They didn’t know. They thanked me and put the blower away. I didn’t have to call the police. The law was on my side, and no one wants to pay a fine or have the police show up at their door.

But now they’re legal again for several months, while so, so many people hate them, and for so, so many reasons. But we have no recourse. The law, for now, is on the side of the people whose menacing behavior and lack of concern for their community is pervasive.

We have a Dark Skies Committee, so why is there no gas-powered leaf blower committee? Let’s start one. Sign me up.

In the meantime, please sign my petition to ban gas-powered leaf blowers. You can access it from my Facebook page at Suzanne Ruggles. Then, when this scourge is finally stopped, we’ll have to inform the townspeople with a mass mailing, in Spanish and English, so ignorance is no longer an excuse.

Suzanne P. Ruggles

Westhampton