A recent flurry of local Op-Eds has framed New Canaan’s upcoming summer gas leaf blower ban as a simple battle between public health and those clinging to “cheap, destructive” habits.
These pieces employ a familiar rhetorical device: painting opponents as selfish, short-sighted, or anti-science instead of debating the actual mechanics of the law. But that misses the mark. It assumes bad faith where there is none. We can freely concede that the proponents’ hearts are in the right place. Wanting a quieter, cleaner summer in New Canaan is a perfectly reasonable, well-intentioned goal we all share.
However, a policy can have the best intentions and still fail in practice. This debate isn’t about whether gas-powered engines are ideal. It is a question of costs and benefits, a constructive look at the unintended consequences, economic realities, and administrative failure points of this ordinance.
New Canaan’s summer ban imposes higher costs on homeowners and small businesses without delivering tangible environmental benefits. We do not have to speculate about these outcomes; we need only look next door. As reported by the Greenwich Free Press, Greenwich’s seasonal ban delivered administrative chaos. On July 18, Greenwich Police Public Information Officer Timothy Kelly noted that between May 23 and July 15 of 2025, there had already been 347 calls for service regarding leaf blower complaints:
“There have been many instances where the reported leaf blower has turned out to be some other piece of equipment that is not banned, and many times there have been no leaf blowers active upon police arrival.”
By the end of its first summer, Greenwich police were flooded with a total of 479 complaints. According to Greenwich Police Chief James Heavey, responding to these calls became a “considerable task,” wasting 15 to 20 minutes of crucial officer time per call, often only to find the landscapers had already left, or that the noise was actually originating from completely legal lawnmowers or weed whackers.
A Quiet Noise Greenwich gas leaf blower impact survey administered July 3-July 12, 2025 revealed ongoing community frustration: over a third of respondents saw virtually zero reduction in gas blower use, while many others expressed deep discomfort with “policing” their own neighbors, yet remained resentful of the lack of actual enforcement. The neighbor-on-neighbor reporting model is the most socially toxic element of the policy. By relying on this system, the ban is effectively encouraging residents to report each other to the police, putting our already stretched local law enforcement in the uncomfortable position of refereeing lawn care disputes.
The human toll of this policy extends to the workforce as well, in ways proponents often overlook. Critics of gas blowers accuse us of outsourcing “our picture-perfect yards to interchangeable crews… whose cardiac and respiratory health we’ve apparently priced well below our own,” claiming the workers are paying the ultimate price for “cheap” landscaping solutions. But this argument ignores the downstream reality for these very workers. By forcing a transition to heavier, less efficient battery-powered equipment, the ban actually results in longer working hours in the summer heat, heavier physical loads, and potential job losses as local landscaping businesses face financial strain.
When a policy negatively impacts local police, creates neighborhood division, and puts economic strain on vulnerable local workers, we have to admit the policy itself is flawed.
A Path Forward: Compromise
One of the frustrations with the ordinance is that instead of a sweeping seasonal ban, the Town could have explored less disruptive, cooperative solutions:
- Tighter Operating Hours: We could have restricted commercial blowers during peak weekend or evening hours, preserving quiet personal time for families.
- Lot-Size Zoning: We could have divided the town by lot sizes, ensuring high-density neighborhoods get noise relief while sparing larger, multi-acre properties where electric alternatives simply cannot get the job done.
- Rotating Quiet Zones: The town could have divided neighborhoods into designated “quiet zones” with a rotating weekly schedule posted clearly on the town website. This would let residents have peaceful outdoor days while still giving landscapers a predictable, workable window to complete their jobs.
To enforce the above, instead of police officers writing tickets on our lawns, New Canaan should look to the Westport model.
When Westport passed its seasonal leaf blower restrictions, town leaders deliberately stripped all monetary fines and police involvement from the final ordinance:
- Administered by the Conservation Department: The administrative task of monitoring compliance falls under a civil department (like our own Conservation Commission).
- Education-First Compliance: When a complaint is submitted, the town does not dispatch an officer. Instead, they mail a friendly “Notice of Violation” and an educational packet directly to the property owner.
When you look past the intentions and analyze the policy itself, New Canaan’s seasonal leaf blower ban fails. I urge all New Canaanites to vote NO on the July 25th referendum.
One administrative note: the ordinance allows for the First Selectman to appoint someone to enforce the ordinance. It doesn’t have to be the police; it can be a current town employee, an intern–whomever the FS chooses. And a written warning is in fact the first tool for enforcement.
Also Greenwich has over 63,000 people compared to New Canaan which has over 20,000 making it 3 times bigger. So this will be a much easier task for a concept that is no longer new, so hardly comparable.
If a town attempts to issue monetary fines using non-police municipal employees (like a Zoning Officer or Town Inspector), the verification mechanism creates an operational bottleneck:
The Evidentiary Problem: To legally issue a civil fine under C.G.S. § 7-152c that survives a hearing, the enforcing officer must establish clear proof of a violation. Relying on neighbor-submitted photos or video creates evidentiary and due-process hurdles, as inspectors cannot easily verify when or where the media was recorded, nor can they definitively identify the operator without being on-scene.
Property Inspections: Town inspectors cannot enter private residential property without permission, a warrant, or exigent circumstances. If they drive by and the crew has already left or is operating in the backyard, no fine can be legally substantiated.
This is why Westport chose to remove fines altogether and handle compliance strictly through administrative educational letters rather than sending town staff to issue fines.
It’s funny, the pro-ban crowd cites evidence and studies (aka facts) supporting their pov, and the “can the ban” (clever) crowd backs their arguments up with fantasy and hypotheticals. For instance, did you know that for all their yammering about small businesses being wiped out or suffering crazy hardships, there is not one single reported instance where a landscaper closed-up shop because of having to switch to electric equipment? In any of the over 100 cities nationwide over 30 years who’ve adopted similar bans. None. In fact, our own landscaper already made the switch, and seems to still be in business and hasn’t jacked-up our rates. If anything, I’d imagine it’s giving him some relief considering the unexpected 30%-50% increase in gas prices since February. Another fun fact, electric leaf blowers (both handheld and backpack style) weigh significantly less than gas powered ones. So, unfortunately for the pro-gas blower crowd, the gotcha argument that landscape workers will need to shoulder all this extra battery weight around doesn’t quite work since, well, they’re lighter. Better lungs and shoulders! Yay technology! And as far as Greenwich being “flooded” with complaints, keep in mind that dozens of the complaints were for repeat offenders, they spiked immediately after the ban took effect (as is usually the case in the first months in towns that ban gas leaf blowers – and equally usual is that they all but die off over time. Westport, for instance, didn’t get any last year) and 457 out of a population of 65,000 is .007 percent. Not quite mass hysteria, is it? Oh, and as far as the suggestion that the law apply differently depending on how big your acreage is, you’re basically advocating that landscapers drive around with two sets of equipment? Talk about putting a burden on a small business. In the end, there are no actual reasons, facts or evidence to support gas blowers. But plenty to support getting rid of them. Vote YES on the ban and lets all join the rest of the modern world.
When was the first or last time you personally had to clean up a lawn, job site or parking lot.
That’s adorable. Ouch!
Thinking of buying an electric lawnmower.
The one I had for 15 yrs finally cut it last lawn a yr ago. The new gas I bought to replace it is crap and must replace it.
Finding out a lot of interesting things about
Kobalt riding mower
Quiet 🤫
Cheaper to run
The riding mower has 2 cutting speeds.
Last 60 min to 90 min depending on cutting speed.
Was on sale for $2,500 same as a gas mover.
Maybe the State could loan the landscapers
0 interest loans to buy new equipment.
Also give towns and cities grants for
New equipment. As well as home owners.
It is a health issue — right
Maybe better than a ban?
Do you care about the health of those who operate two-cycle engines, mainly leaf blowers — their hearing, their brains, their hearts, their lungs? Do you care about carcinogens in our New Canaan air? Do you care about our peace and quiet? If you do, stop using two-cycle engines or paying others to do so.
Thank you, Pavia. I appreciate the research involved and the facts. Vote No on July 25. We can certainly do better as a community to find a solution that works for everyone.
I am hopeful that in the not-too-distant future, as a society, we will look back on the widespread use of highly polluting and deafeningly loud gas-powered leaf blowers and shake our heads and think, wow, we really put up with that? I believe it will be analogous to how we look back on past practices like smoking being allowed everywhere, including airplanes, bragging about how little sleep one gets by on, and the widespread use of flimsy plastic shopping bags that often ended up in trees and shrubs, and find it hard to believe that this was all commonplace.
I look forward to the gradual transition of most outdoor equipment to cleaner, quieter technology, so that as a society, we can reclaim our outdoor space and provide a healthier work environment for people in the field. No one planned for leaf blowers to be ubiquitous; it just happened, and we can make it unhappen, gradually, over time. This ordinance is a good first step.
We do most of our own yard work, although admittedly, we have someone cut our lawn. But we do the leaves, and all the beds. We will use our gas-powered leaf blower for this big job, but just a couple of times in the fall.
Support the ordinance; it’s not really that onerous, and honestly, there are not all that many leaves to deal with in the summer.
Where were these ideas during the more than five years this ordinance was being developed? Where were the people now calling for a do-over during the Town Council meetings, committee meetings, and public hearings where these issues were discussed in detail?
This ordinance wasn’t rushed. For more than five years, residents showed up, spoke up, wrote letters and emails, and debated the details. Hundreds of people participated in a process that was open, transparent, and available to anyone who wanted to be involved.
Now that the work has been done and the ordinance has passed, we’re hearing a long list of alternative ideas from people who largely sat out the process. It’s easy to come up with different plays after the game is over. If these were better solutions, why weren’t they presented while the ordinance was being written?
Some of the alternatives being suggested simply don’t hold up. A larger property doesn’t make noise disappear. Sound doesn’t stop at a property line, and many supporters of the ordinance live on multi-acre properties. They know from experience that gas leaf blower noise carries well beyond the yard where it’s being used. If you attended the meetings, you heard those residents say exactly that.
The suggestion of rotating “quiet zones” may sound creative, but it’s not practical. Residents shouldn’t have to check a calendar to find out when they can enjoy a quiet afternoon in their own backyard.
No ordinance is perfect. If experience shows that changes are needed, then amend it. That’s how local government is supposed to work. But overturning an ordinance that took more than five years of public discussion, research, compromise, and debate without offering a clear replacement isn’t a solution.
If this ordinance is rejected, then what? Who writes the next one? How long will it take? Are we going to have to endure another five years debating the same issues while residents continue to live with the same problems?
Hundreds of residents invested their time in this process. They attended meetings, submitted comments, and helped shape this ordinance. Whether you agree with every provision or not, that work deserves respect.
If someone believes they have a better approach, let’s hear it. Put it on paper. Explain how it would work, how it would be enforced, and how quickly it could be adopted. Until then, “start over” isn’t a plan—it’s simply a delay.
After five years of public participation, New Canaan deserves to move forward, not go back to square one.
Vote YES.
To all the voters saying ‘NO’, the signage around town saying ‘WE CAN DO BETTER’ does not say what better is. Achieving perfection with the ban, while ideal, is not an excuse to stiffle progress.
To all the landscapers voting ‘NO’, it seems like there is demand for electric blowing services in the community and instead of fighting it, this is an opportunity to market yourself as green to get more business.
To Karp, I am a DIYer and take care of my lawn. I haven’t mowed it or blown it since Memorial weekend. The next mow will be by the end of July.
To Denise, explain what better is.
To all voters, you can see climate change in the extremes of multiple 100F days. You can see climate change in the smoke we are breathing from the Ontario (and Yukon) Forest fires. Click Wildfires in Google Maps and understand the scale of what is happening. Put your children ahead of your politics.
There are good arguments for both sides – I also live in a community during the summer that has a ban. It did raise the cost of my landscaping and I can’t say that there is an appreciable noise abatement when 4 landscapers have the battery versions going at one time.
What I do scratch my head at is if this is really a health quality issue, why did the selectmen (people) conveniently carved the town equipment out of the ban – what kind of message does that send regarding the true reasons and value of the ban? Too many times elected officials forget who serves who. We elected the town officials to be an example.
The “Greenwich Time” article has some useful information and comments by residents in Greenwich: “I appreciate your efforts, I walk…everyday in Old Greenwich like many people. It has literally changed quality of life!! It’s so obvious now when I come across the noise and stink and allergens of gas blowers.”
“Camillo (First selectman) said he had stopped to talk to some of the landscapers himself.
“’I do it in a way that is not confrontational,” he said. “I was more concerned with the smaller properties where it is not necessary.”
“’Hopefully people will phase out the gas leaf blowers,’” he added.
“Conservation director Beth Evans confirmed her department was following up with letters to the known “repeat offenders,” and will be meeting again with the Police to try to prepare for next season.
“A Quiet Noise Greenwich gas leaf blower impact survey administered July 3-July 12, 2025 had some interesting results.
“With 195 responses, 20% indicated they noticed Greenwich was much quieter this summer; 45.6% said it was a little quieter but they still occasionally saw gas leaf blowers in use; and 34.4% said they saw no reduction in use.”
Both residents and business owners can read what the rules are, it shouldn’t be that difficult to institute change and persuade the scofflaws to come into compliance.
I wish to address the factual challenges in Andrew Ault’s comment regarding the claimed lack of evidence of business impacts.
The Connecticut General Assembly heard extensive testimony from commercial landscapers, the Connecticut Nursery & Landscape Association, the Connecticut Recreation & Parks Association, and DAS/DEEP/CTDOT state agencies explaining that current battery technology increases costs, reduces productivity, and imposes substantial capital expenses on small businesses. The state agencies also noted that gas leaf blowers account for approximately 0.01% of Connecticut’s NOx emissions inventory:
DAS/DEEP/CTDOT testimony: https://portal.ct.gov/das/-/media/das/legislative-testimony/2026/sb-319.pdf
Connecticut Nursery & Landscape Association: https://www.cga.ct.gov/2026/envdata/TMY/2026SB-00319-R000304-Goodwin%2C%20Chris%2C%20Officer-CT%20Nursery%20-%20Landscape%20Assn-Opposes-TMY.PDF
Connecticut Recreation & Parks Association: https://www.cga.ct.gov/2026/envdata/TMY/2026SB-00319-R000304-Stolfi%20Collins%2C%20Valerie%2C%20Executive%20Director-CRPA-Opposes-TMY.PDF
Commercial landscaper: https://www.cga.ct.gov/2026/envdata/TMY/2026SB-00319-R000304-Friedl%2C%20Kris%2C%20Owner-The%20Shrub%20Guys%20LLC-Opposes-TMY.PDF
As for Greenwich, the relevant statistic isn’t complaints as a percentage of the town’s population, virtually no ordinance generates complaints from a large share of residents. The meaningful comparison is before vs. after. Complaints increased roughly tenfold after the ban, creating a significant new enforcement burden according to Greenwich’s police chief.
Also 457 out of 65,000 isn’t 0.007%, it’s 0.7%.
Landscapers are mostly small businesses, many single proprietorships. Landscaping is a capital intensive business. It generally requires 5 tons trucks, trailers, heavy duty lawn mowers (either riders or walk behinds), tillers, aerators, seed spreaders, sprayers, left blowers, weed whackers, trimmers, chain saws, and occasional backhoes. The capital investment in a landscaping business is significant. Landscaping is also a competitive industry and margins are thin. These companies do not have excess working capital, or access to easy credit. A whole sale conversion from gas to electric will be an enormous burden for the industry. This is something to ponder as we deliberate.
As we are learning to do with pollinator gardens and letting lawns grow into fields, we must re-educate ourselves as to what is attractive and healthy for nature. Leaving the leaves and grass clippings is healthier for the lawn and the bugs. So what if the driveway has a few pieces of grass/leaves on it. Get out a broom if it really bothers you.
Walking down Oenoke this morning, a loud and large diesel dump truck drove by spewing black smoke as far as you could see.
When I went to Town Hall today, and then left after 30 minutes, I noticed that there was a Maserati in the town parking lot that had been left idling the whole time…it was only 75 degrees out. Saw another empty car at CVS idling away.
For months on end, there has been loud daily house demolition and construction on the street behind us.
Will banning gas powered leaf blowers in the summer make a big difference?
Palva Levin’s op‑ed reflects the concerns of many in town who want a noise ordinance that is fair, consistent, and grounded in practical reality. Her critique is spot on. The Town Council created an ordinance that is essentially a municipal camel, a law assembled by committee from compromises and contradictions rather than clear logic or workable policy.
I would also question whether the First Selectman’s office is even behind this law. It was telling that when the ordinance passed, there was no official announcement from the Town and no formal instructions on how the policy was going to be implemented. That silence matters. For a regulation that affects nearly every homeowner and landscaping business in New Canaan, residents should have received clear guidance. Instead, it appeared as though the Town Council assumed everyone reads the New Canaanite and would somehow piece together the rollout on their own.
The Town’s, and our elected officials’, first responsibility is to the people and constituents who live here and pay the taxes that support this community—not to protecting a particular business model. Businesses should expect to adapt to reasonable local regulations, not the other way around.
Residents have lived with this noise for years. Everyone I’ve spoken with has expressed frustration with the constant noise and interruptions. If you had attended the Town Council meetings and heard the level of frustration from residents, you would understand that this is not a political issue—it is a quality-of-life issue. People want this ordinance. It is a summer-only restriction, during a time when there are no leaves to blow.
The landscaping industry has had more than five years to see this coming. The writing has been on the wall all along. Waiting until after the ordinance passed to argue that change is too difficult is not a compelling argument.
During one of the many public hearings leading up to New Canaan’s leaf blower ordinance, Town Council member Hilary Ormond wisely commented that most town residents will comply in good faith with a new rule once they know it exists. That is why the first enforcement step of New Canaan’s ordinance has always been education. But sadly, there is always a minority who couldn’t care less about their neighbors and are not interested in learning to adjust their behavior. As a result, laws need to have teeth if they are to have meaning.
This is why the Westport model that Pavla mentions does not work. It is nice to think that everyone will respond to education and live together like one big happy family. But that is not Westport’s experience. Westport’s leaf blower ordinance originally had enforcement procedures similar to New Canaan’s, but they were stripped out at the last minute after intense lobbying from landscapers and their supporters – the same interest group that wants you to vote No in New Canaan. With no consequences for violation, tensions have increased between the majority who make the effort to comply and the minority who deliberately and repeatedly ignore the ordinance, as well as frustration with the town government for failing to protect the health and well-being of its citizens.
New Canaan should not follow Westport’s mistake. For any new rule, enforcement calls go up in the short term as people learn. If the rule is enforced, calls go down after that because behavior changes. New Canaan police probably get very few calls to enforce the ban on smoking in restaurants, for example. So any burden on the police will be short-lived, and it is misleading to cite enforcement calls right after a new ordinance was passed. But an ordinance that is not enforced or is unenforceable – as Pavla and the No group advocate — is a recipe for more tensions between neighbors and a more angry, frustrated community. Don’t let New Canaan go down that road. Vote Yes on Saturday or at Town Hall this week.
Thanks for the math correction, Pavla. Seems like my bad arithmetic grades have come to haunt me, but I’m glad I aced civics. 99.3% of Greenwich’s 60,000+ people NOT complaining seems like a success. And I agree that complaints about an ordinance will be higher after it passes than before, because, well, before an ordinance exists, it can’t be cited. Still, the fact that the Greenwich PD non-emergency phone number received an uptick in complaints doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have an ordinance. Those complaint numbers dropped drastically after the expected break-in period, and Greenwich strengthened the ordinance in January of 2025, adding escalating fines for violators.
I really don’t understand how the “no-ban” crowd puts the needs and comfort of commercial landscapers above those of the community that hires them. My point stands that these popular gas-blower bans haven’t put anyone out of business. Are there costs with changing out the equipment? Sure. But guess what, they already changed out the equipment since all our neighboring towns were earlier to the cleaner-air party than us. But if you want to talk about new, unnecessary costs, how about how gas has gone up 50% in 5 months? Certainly, those costs are getting passed along. And judging by today’s headlines, likely to keep on going up.
But overall, I still fundamentally disagree with the position that a short-term rise in potential complaints (which, as has been pointed out, can be routed to a town group other than the NCPD) and upgrade costs are a valid reason to never do anything about this issue. Where, exactly, are all these “better” plans your fellow pro-blower crew alludes to? Do they not involve different equipment or a plan for enforcement? Oh, right, those plans don’t actually exist.
How about the “can the ban” crowd let the rest of us enjoy what summer we have left while you all draft up new ordinance proposals and then spend five years getting your changes incorporated into the good one we’ve got in front of us. VOTE YES!
For the “Can the Ban”crowd who suggest we could write a better ordinance, it reminds me of those same people who pitched “Repeal and Replace”. And how did that work out?
I have both – Small jobs go Electric – Great for hard surfaces like patios and driveways dose not do well on grass areas though – Down side is that they only last 2 years and battery wont take a charge anymore and blower is made out of cheep plastic and its a top of the line model – on my 2nd one allready and this 2nd one is about break as plastic is allready starting to crack. My gas blower is the King for large projects – Its 10 years old and its a champ – Not one problem with it – use about 5 gallons of gas a year with it – it cost alot from an independent seller when I bought it. It gets the job done very well and faster then electic. I can bet the landscapers will double if not triple the cost for services if all electic gose into full effect from what landscapers have told me – The ones that stay working in this town atleast. I would recommend you call yours and find out how much more they will charge you if this gose into effect. You might be shocked on the price they will charge you. Electic pro blowers models are just not as good as gas right now – That might change down the road – time will tell.