Oops, The Queen Of Quiet Yards Did It Again!
You just can't make this stuff up.
The landscapers working at the home of Elizabeth Dempsey, the founder of the group responsible for pushing the seasonal ban on gas powered leaf blowers -- Quiet Yards -- just violated the seasonal ban on gas-powered leaf blowers.
They did it right in front of one of those obnoxious yellow "gas powered leaf blowers prohibited" signs that are littering the roadsides and rotaries all around town, no less!
Plus, neither the landscapers nor the truck they drove had any sort of information indicating the name of the landscaping company or the license number -- why do you think that is?
It's not the first time this has happened.
Her landscapers were caught breaking the rules last summer, too—the very first season the ordinance, which was passed by the admittedly "left of center" RTM, went into effect.
Rules for thee, but not for me!
Of course, the Queen of Quiet Yards was not the only scofflaw.
The Greenwich Time reported that 27 different police officers responded to 71 leaf blower complaints in the first week of the ban, which is similar to the experience last year.
It's worth adding that 85% of complaints received in the first month last year turned up absolutely nothing, and just wasted police resources.
We've also spotted Town employees violating the gas-powered leaf blower ban, but that's not a surprise considering they didn't receive the nearly half-million dollar budget increase that would have been required to purchase the expensive electric equipment.
All of the other issues with electric equipment that we previously pointed out still remain, especially the fire risk, which absolutely should not be overlooked, especially after watching a massive fire in Port Chester the other week caused by a lithium ion battery.
This is the risk that the Queen of Quiet Yards, her environmental activist friends, the left-wing RTM members who approved this ordinance and even our First Selectman, who strongly supported the ban, want landscaping companies to take if they want to use a leaf blower in Greenwich over the summer -- the risk that their entire business will burn to the ground overnight because a single lithium ion battery caught on fire.
Meanwhile, the landscapers coalition have identified gas powered leaf blowers that are quieter than electric leaf blowers, more economical to purchase and operate, and they don't release dangerous forever chemicals -- toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) -- into the environment like electric leaf blowers do.
The Quiet Yards folks don't seem to care about that kind of air quality, though, and have made this an attack on fossil fuels.
Furthermore, the Quiet Yards folks don't care much about keeping their promises, either, and never came through with that money they promised to landscapers to help offset the massive investment required to shift to electric equipment.
The landscapers want to present a common sense alternative to the impractical Quiet Yards ordinance, but have been met with considerable resistance from a progressive RTM that doesn't care about the very real issues they created by rushing through the ban.
The police officers we spoke with (off the record) just rolled their eyes and shook their heads when asked about the ordinance, saying how "stupid" and "annoying" it is -- they hope it goes away.
The property owners we interviewed were equally annoyed, especially the ones with properties less than 2 acres in size who realized they are being treated unfairly and discriminated against because of the size of their property.
That's because property owners who have less than 2 acres are banned from using gas powered leaf blowers for nearly a month longer than larger property owners are banned. Where's the "equity" in that?
Everyone we spoke with absolutely hated the fact that Quiet Yards and its supporters were encouraging people to snitch on their neighbors.
A bunch of the people we interviewed joked that the democrats told us there were "no kings in America" but apparently we have a Queen in Greenwich, at least for now.
Frankly, after watching the Queen of Quiet Yards make a mockery of her very own ordinance, we think it's high time for the RTM to meet with the professional landscapers, listen to their experiences so far, and work with them to create a more reasonable ordinance that even the Queen herself might find palatable enough to follow.
