Backpack mounted and hand-held gasoline-powered leaf blower types of machines are banned: May 15 through September 30. December 15 through March 30. See regulations.
Aldermen Sound Off About Leaf Blower Noise
Evanston Roundtable - Nov 16, 2005 By Bill Smith
www.evanstonroundtable.com/rt2005/roundtable111605/news.html
A proposal backed by local landscape firms to loosen the City's restrictions on leaf blowers encountered stiff headwinds at Monday's City Council meeting.
The Evanston Environmental Board proposed the change, saying manufacturers have reduced the noise level of new blowers by over 50 percent in the last decade so that they now often are quieter than lawnmowers.
The City now bars use of gasoline-powered leaf blowers from May 15 to September 30 and again from December 15 to March 30. The new ordinance would permit use of blowers that generate no more than 65 decibels of noise at any time.
Ald. Melissa Wynne, 3rd Ward, who was on the Environmental Board when the current ordinance was adopted, said there was tremendous community outcry about the blowers at that time.
"We should either rake leaves, or use a mower and mulch them," Ald. Wynne said. She suggested the City should do what Highland Park already does: ban the blowers completely.
Ald. Edmund Moran, 6th Ward, said he has never had a constituent call to say "this is a bad law and we really ought to get rid of it."
"I still get a fair number of leaf blower calls," Ald. Moran said, "I hear from people who want it more restrictive."
Ald. Lionel Jean-Baptiste, 2nd Ward, said he proposed the change at the urging of owners of a number of landscaping businesses in his ward.
"I've never been able to discern a difference in offensiveness between lawnmower and leaf blower noise," Ald. Jean-Baptiste said, "and we have people cutting grass all day long during lawn mowing season."
The Council voted to introduce the ordinance and scheduled it for further consideration at its next meeting.