Temporary signage, in English and Spanish, was placed in North Haven this week reminding residents and landscapers that the municipality’s ban on gas-powered leaf blowers goes into effect tomorrow.
The North Haven Village Board voted to double the fine paid for infractions at its April 21 meeting to $500, payable by the homeowner on whose property the leaf blowers are used, not the landscaper doing the work.
In 2022, North Haven was one of the first municipalities on the East End to institute a seasonal leaf blower ban, and it’s still the one in effect for the longest period each year: from May 1 to Nov. 1.
“We also have fliers that we are putting onto the windshields of landscaper’s trucks, and we’ve reiterated to homeowners that they’re responsible for telling the landscapers to move to electric equipment,” North Haven Village Mayor Chris Fiore said this week, speaking about the village’s new communication efforts.
“We’ve only received positive feedback,” he said. “It would be great if all the municipalities and hamlets could get together and agree to the same dates for bans.”
In the Town and Village of East Hampton, the gas-powered blower ban runs from May 20 through Sept. 20.
“I’m in favor of transitioning to all-electric leaf blowers,” East Hampton Town Councilwoman Cate Rogers said in a text exchange this week. “I would welcome an immediate revisit of the dates of the current ban as they do not reflect the time when leaves are falling.”
However, when asked about a full-year ban in March, every member of the East Hampton Town Board was cautious, balancing concern for their constituents with that of the many people employed in the landscaping industry.
Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez did not respond by press time this week to a text asking if she supported extending the gas-powered leaf blower ban to match North Haven’s.
Gail Pellett, a co-founder of the local environmental group ChangeHampton, said that a petition that goes even further, calling for a full ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, had seen a near doubling of signatures, to 350, in just the last month. A high percentage of the signatories are town residents, she reported.
East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen was receptive to the idea of extending the dates of the village’s blower ban and said he would explore it at the May village board meeting.
In the Village of Sag Harbor, there is no seasonal ban, meaning gas-powered blowers can be used all year, surprising because of the small size of so many properties.
Instead, commercial use of blowers is prohibited on weekends and before 8 a.m. and after 5 p.m. during the week. A section of code also limits the decibel level of blowers to 65; gas-powered leaf blowers typically operate at levels above 80 decibels. So while there is no seasonal ban in effect, the decibel level would seem to indicate that any use of a gas-powered blower runs contrary to the village’s noise ordinance.
Mayor Tom Gardella offered mixed messages in a text exchange Tuesday. While he said he is not a “fan of banning if it’s not going to solve the problem” he also said he wasn’t opposed to a seasonal ban. He also said gas-powered blowers are not much louder than their electric cousins.
A 2018 paper in the Journal of Environmental and Toxicological Studies found that gas-powered blower sound levels at distances of 100 to 400 feet were over 20 decibels louder than those of electric blowers. An increase of 10 decibels leads to a noise sounding twice as loud to the human ear; an increase of 20 decibels sounds four times as loud.
A 2017 study by Erica Walker with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health concluded that noise from gas blowers is also at a lower frequency, allowing it to travel farther and pass through walls. The authors said 11 million such blowers were in use across the United States and concluded that the sound they produced “may travel over long distances in a community at levels known to increase the risk of adverse health effects.”
That study didn’t address air quality, but another, published in late 2025 by Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine’s Institute for Exposomic Research showed they emit carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, benzene, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter, in addition to blowing around all the pesticides and herbicides that have already been applied to the lawns.
“The air released from gas-powered leaf blowers can reach speeds of 200 miles per hour, sending dust, pollen, pesticides, mold, and heavy metals in soil into the air where they can be breathed in,” reads the report.
Meanwhile, back in 2019, the BBC reported that in Germany, scientists had concluded that leaf blowers were partly to blame for a more than 75 percent decline of insects in just the prior three decades. It’s part of a worldwide decline known alternately as “the insect apocalypse” or the “sixth mass extinction.”
Once, in the not-so-distant past, most garden tasks were done manually. Gas-powered blowers didn’t become popular until the mid-1980s, and locally, landscaping companies didn’t become industrialized until much later.
The same day North Haven strengthened its code, an electric landscaping equipment rebate program passed the New York State Legislature.
Local state representatives were supportive: Assemblyman Tommy John Schiavoni co-sponsored the bill and State Senator Anthony Palumbo voted for it.
The program would be administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and according to the legislation, would “offer point-of-sale rebates to commercial landscapers and institutional users, including municipalities, who purchase battery-powered electric landscaping equipment, such as leaf blowers, weed whackers, or lawn mowers.”
It is on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk waiting to be signed into law. She has supported rebates for electric vehicle transition and for home appliances in the past.
Gordon Tepper, a spokesman for Governor Hochul, said only, “The governor will review the legislation.”
Finally, ChangeHampton is holding a demonstration of electric landscaping equipment at East Hampton Town Hall on May 16, from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. The demonstration will showcase the major brands, like EGO, Stihl, Milwaukee, Kress, Greenworks, Husqvarna, and Pellenc. Representatives of the companies will be available for questions, and a raffle will award a free blower.
