City adds teeth to long

Palo Alto added some fuel to its effort to crack down on gas-powered leaf blowers when the City Council on Monday, June 19, raised the fines for flouting the city's ban on the noisy appliance and shortened the process for issuing citations.

By a unanimous vote, the council raised the penalty for the first violation from $100 to $250. Second and third violations would carry fines of $500 and $1,000, respectively, up from $150 and $300. The council also made it easier for code enforcement officers to issue citations by removing the five-day waiting period that the city had previously granted to violators between a warning and an official citation.

The moves, which the council approved on its "consent calendar" with no discussion or dissent, were consistent with the proposals from the Department of Planning and Development Services, which recommended the changes in a bid to add some teeth to a regulation that has been on the books for decades but that has largely been ignored.

The council had previously endorsed these changes in February. The June 19 action formally implements them.

With more residents and environmental advocates crying foul in recent years about the noise and pollution associated with gas-powered leaf blowers, Palo Alto hired a code enforcement officer last year who is specifically focused on the regulation.

The council also agreed that the property owners — rather than the landscapers — should be held responsible for violating the local prohibition on gas-powered leaf blowers, which has been around since 2005 and which applies only to residential neighborhoods.

The new rule changes formally enact this direction. They empower the code enforcement officer to issue citations to property owners, landscapers or the property owners who hire the landscapers.

When property owners aren't aware that the landscapers they hire use gas-powered leaf blowers, the revised rules provide a grace period, or a period of "constructive knowledge." In these situations, the code enforcement officer would have the discretion to issue a notice of violation and give the property owner time to remedy the violation and thus avoid a fine.

The law also removes the five-day waiting period that made it nearly impossible for city code enforcement officers to issue citations unless they actually observe two violations at least five days apart. Planning Director Jonathan Lait told the council in February that the city was aware of only three citations for leaf-blower violations issued within the prior 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," Lait told the council at the time.

Now, city leaders are hoping that the revised ordinance will help them both inform gardeners and homeowners about the longstanding policy and crack down on those who ignore it.

To help achieve compliance, the Department of Planning and Development Services is proposing a public engagement strategy that includes community meetings, a dedicated website, door hangers and inclusion about the leaf blower ban in information in utility bills, according to a report from the department.

The report notes that code enforcement officers have long employed a strategy to "gain voluntary compliance over aggressive citation and penalty fee collection."

"An overriding principle is to first inform and then seek compliance," the report states. "When needed, follow up with a time to cure and pay a penalty thereafter if needed."

The new ordinance stops well short of some of the measures that had been recommended by local environmentalists, including a citywide ban on gas-powered leaf blowers and an expansion of the ban to include electric leaf-blowers as well.

Climate activist David Coale made a case for raking leaves rather than blowing them at the February meeting and suggested that electric leaf blowers have some of the same drawbacks as gas-powered ones.

"Electric leaf blowers still kick up toxic dust into the air and they still make noise," Coale told the council at that time.

While council members haven't endorsed a ban on electric leaf blowers, they indicated earlier this year that they are willing to explore a citywide ban on the gas-powered variety. In April, the council voted to direct its Policy and Services Committee to explore such a ban in 2024.

Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims is among those who believe that the ban should extend beyond residential areas, noting that less affluent people are more likely to live in dense housing developments in commercial and industrial areas.

"I would like to see us enforce a gas leaf blower ban citywide as a matter of equity for residents." Lythcott-Haims said during the February discussion.

• Related story: More than hot air: Research shows health risks in air pollution caused by leaf blowers, but industry disputes implications