The Desert Sun dug up the data on the number of residents within the city who complained about leaf blower noise in the month of June and, surprise!, plenty of people called in to complain.
The city began enforcing a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers on the 1st of June and, while the newspaper reports there were plenty of complaints, it looks like code enforcement wasn’t out to gouge local landscapers with fines…well, yet, anyway.
Data reviewed by The Desert Sun show that code-enforcement officers issued just eight citations for gas-powered leaf blowers. The city received a total of 288 complaints for all code-enforcement violations in June. Of those, 67 — or 23% — were for leaf blowers.
Being cited means a $100 fine, $200 if you are cited again, and $500 if you are busted doing gas-powered leaf blowing a third time in Palm Springs.
The Desert Sun notes that of the 67 complaints, there were plenty of false alarms, including 12 incidents where someone called in to complain about what turned out to be an electric leaf blower, which are totally acceptable in the city.
So how did people end up complaining about electric leaf blowers? Well, Lt. Mike Villegas, head of the city’s code-compliance division, offered up a theory to the newspaper.
“People don’t like the noise,” he said. “People assumed they were going to be silent.”
