I don't think that this proposed ordinance is as dumb as Jason claims. If I understand his argument correctly, the ordinance is dumb because it should REALLY be addressing either
1. noise pollution or 2. air pollution or 3. both He proposes as a reductio ad absurdum for #2 that we have an ordinance banning petroleum fueled internal combustion engines. This is rhetorical overkill and just plain silly; it's like saying we should either ban all boats on Lake Calhoun, or allow supertankers. The fact is that internal combustion engines differ wildly on how they pollute. Small hand-held devices like leaf blowers almost universally use two-stroke engines, which spew a lot of uncombusted and partially combused gasoline and oil smoke into the air, especially if they're not kept well-tuned. These small devices simply can't afford the power and weight overhead to clean their exhaust the way, for example, a car can. The more of these we can get rid of, the happier we'll be. As for why we should ban leaf blowers and not gas lawn mowers, well, politics is the art of the possible. Once one of these devices gets its foot in the door, you can never get rid of it. Let's try to stop this one now. A little raking won't kill us. Now, as for #1, noise pollution, I can think of an easy, strong, feasibility argument for the ordinance. We simply cannot afford to start sending out squad cars with their own decibel meters, much less keep them all adjusted and calibrated (along the lines of radar guns), much less have them cross-examined in court. The question "is this person using a leaf-blower?" or "is this person using a leaf blower outside permitted hours of operation?" is a slam-dunk to answer. "is this person producing more than X decibels, measured at a distance of not less than Y feet" is a LOT harder to answer, and to deal with in the courts. The question of enforcement feasibility makes this ordinance sound a lot less dumb to me than others have claimed. Best, Robert -- Robert P. Goldman ECCO [EMAIL PROTECTED] REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
