The Sag Harbor Village Board seems poised to place seasonal bans on gas-powered leaf blowers, following the lead of East Hampton and Southampton Towns and Villages.
While some of the details still need to be ironed out, Aidan Corish, a village trustee, said this week that he plans to work on crafting a new law that could be voted on as soon as next month to limit use of the equipment.
In 2020, the village placed some restrictions on the gas-powered blowers, which Mr. Cornish said were crafted with an eye toward a future ban. The idea was that contractors would need time to switch over from gas-powered equipment to electric equivalents. That time may have come, he said.
The state will be offering rebates for commercial landscapers, governments, and school districts. However, at this time, the rebates are not being offered to homeowners. And while the rebate program has been established, the full rollout has not occurred and the budget amount has not been announced.
As it stands, the village allows commercial landscapers to operate leaf blowers only on weekdays until 5 p.m. They are prohibited at all hours on weekends and holidays. Homeowners are permitted to use blowers on Saturdays until 2 p.m.
By enacting new restrictions, Mr. Corish said, some of these rules could actually be relaxed since the less-noisy electric leaf blowers would not have to be regulated as strictly.
East Hampton Town laws ban the use of gas-powered leaf blowers entirely from May 20 until Sept. 20. And all leaf blowers — both gas-powered and electric — may not be used on Sundays during that time period.
Outside of those months, gas-powered blowers are permitted on weekdays until 6 p.m. and Saturdays until 5 p.m.
Sag Harbor Village could move in this direction.
Code enforcement would be key, Mr. Corish said on Tuesday night. He said he has recently received a number of complaints from residents, and while those could be funneled through to Code Enforcement, that department does not operate on weekends.
“It will come down to enforcement,” Anthony Vermandois, an architect and board watcher, noted this week. Public information will also be vital, he said, adding that it is usually not the larger companies violating the leaf blower regulations, but the smaller operators that may not be aware of the rules.
Those details have yet to come into focus but may sharpen in the next month.
