TheAgitator.com
Banned
Tuesday, September 28th, 2004Chapel Hill’s looking at a prohibition on leaf blowers.
Haven’t we yet learned the lessons of dangerous, black-market leaf blowers and the underground leaf blower trade effected by leaf blowr prohibitions?
Er, something like that.
Are they going to ban gas-powered lawn mowers as well? They’re just as loud.
Up until a couple of years ago, my grandmother could opperate a leaf blower. She couldn’t rake, though.
Unintended consequences, anyone?
“They’re incredibly noisy and irritating,” said Chapel Hill Town Council member Cam Hill.
You can have my leafblower when you pry it from dead, garden-gloved hands.
On a side note did anybody notice that The Joker appears to be on the newscast team at WRAL?
We could always use Chris Roach’s Drug War justification here. You see, these people who are using and selling leafblowers illegally, they are criminal scum to begin with. If they weren’t committing this crime, they’d be committing other, more violent crimes. So, it’s better that we use something like this, which is easily identifiable and has no real victims, as flypaper to catch these would-be-anyway criminals before they get into some real crime…
Ah yes, the impeccable English lawn we so rightly have rights to.
We ARE sprawl from Europe after all.
For the record, those damn things annoy the heck out of me (loud and grating). However, it’s obvious that this is one of those dumb “I don’t like that” laws that serve little purpose.
If noise is the real problem, then set reasonable limits (decibel level or times of operation). The problem is that for some areas (especially those nicely tree-lined parks and lawns on public property), this is the most cost-effective method for removing the leaf piles.
I do smell “but it’s bad for the environment” whining in the air on this one. But one guy using a gas powered blower vs. four-five guys all raking and smoking probably is equivalent (OK, maybe not.)
I can’t wait until I can annoy my neighbors with my gas-powered leaf blower.
It’ll get back at those bastards that keep burning shit in their outdoor fireplaces, which is just a way around the city ordinances on burning.
I don’t think the city intended for anyone to burn a driveway full of leaves and branches when they decided to allow outdoor fireplaces.
Quid pro quo, I say.
“People in the lawn maintenance business say they love leaf blowers because they can get up a big pile of leaves quickly. And for them, time is money.”
Landscaper Geary Blackwood lives outside town limits but does work in Chapel HIll. He says his customers will have to pay more if a ban on leaf blowers is passed.
“It would impact us greatly from the simple standpoint of labor, labor costs going up,” he said.”
Heck, if I were him, I’d just haul around a gas-powered generator around to power an electric leaf blower. Take that.
I think that this is an excellent response:
“It seems there could be something else that’s a little more important,” Blackwood said. “Not to say that his (Hill’s) idea doesn’t have some importance to him, but it certainly should be thought about a little more before it’s voted on.