I’m listening to the sound of a gasoline-powered leaf blower. It will last for an hour, and another might take its place later today. Four days a week, I’m disturbed by the horrible racket. I telecommute from home, an increasingly common practice in La Cañada Flintridge. When I retire, I plan to live a quiet life at home. Except, there is no quiet.
Let’s leave aside the implications for global warming and the incredible amounts of hazardous pollution that those machines generate. That’s all true, but let’s focus on the impact on our quality of life. We live in a town that is understandably fixated on building sound walls along the 210 freeway, yet we can’t even get rid of the uglier noise at our own doorsteps?
Last September, one of our Council members explained his reluctance to vote for a ban by saying that it might create tensions between neighbors. Well, guess what? I’m already annoyed with some of my neighbors. To save a little money on their gardening bills, they make life uglier for everyone around them.
Electric leaf blowers are annoying, too, but they are much less annoying than gasoline-powered leaf blowers. Yet the gardeners, and those who employ them, don’t want to pay the price to upgrade. They want us to pay a price with our ears, instead.
More than 30 cities in California have banned gasoline-powered leaf blowers. South Pasadena already banned them. Pasadena’s ban takes effect in less than two weeks. The state of California bans their sale (but not their operation) beginning next year. However, our own City Council seems paralyzed by the issue, and won’t protect the community’s peace and quiet.
There’s an old piece of advice for people in a position of responsibility: lead, follow, or get out of the way. Our Council members have not picked any of those three options.
The Council must end this hellish racket, now.
Mark Hunter
La Cañada Flintridge
First published in the April 20 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
