Now it's a crime to use gas trimmers in my California city just as fire season kicks off...

[ultrarunner]

Oakland Bans the Use of Combustion Engine-Powered Leaf Blowers and…

The official website of the City of Oakland. Find out about meetings, request City services through OAK 311, or contact the Mayor and City Council.

www.oaklandca.gov

Since 1980 I've been doing hillside fire suppression with handlebar trimmers...

The terrain is rugged and taxing covering many acres...

Now illegal to use gas powered trimmers and herbicide is also problematic as root structure is to remain providing soil stabilization...

It's just nuts...

 

[kenmbz]

So how are they going to pay everyone to upgrade to electric.
More government reacting to a small vocal group, instead of thinking.

 

[MossRoad]

I'm surprised they can ban them with no phase-out time period. Especially since it applies to both residential and commercial use. It doesn't give people time to seek alternative tools, does it?

 

[MossRoad]

Looks like you can use your string trimmer until October, 2021.

 

[5030]

Pretty soon, Kalifornians will be back to using Scythe's and armstrong labor. No need for a gas motor or a Li-Ion battery, just good old fashion armstrong power.

 

[ultrarunner]

Stihl Dealer can't get enough of the $1000+ backpack batteries...

This is peak fire suppression season...

 

[downsizingnow48]

I've seen small herds of goats on fields here recently, they clear cut pretty fast!

Using Goats to Prevent Wildfires

Communities worried about the ravages of wildfires are embracing a four-legged solution

www.smithsonianmag.com

 

[MoKelly]

Can you guys still bar-b-q? I read California was prohibiting such stuff due to the smoke.

Crazy.

MoKelly

 

[Captain Dirty]

Read the fine print (and between the lines). When our lawmakers pass poorly-crafted or poorly-thought-out regulations, those regulations often come back to bite them. So as not to lose face with the vocal, often minority, agitators the initial rules were to satisfy, the lawmakers pass exceptions, usually buried in small print or unpublicized amendments.

Note that the by-law applies only to internal combustion leaf blowers and string trimmers. Chances are ultrarunner's handlebar trimmer can be fit with a brush-cutting or saw blade and likely was marketed as a "brush trimmer", "brush cutter", or "clearing saw" as opposed to a "string trimmer". Gyro Gearloose Gadfly might even come up with a coal or wood or brush-fired boiler, steam turbine-driven (i.e. external combustion) device that would be more noxious than than those the by-law bans.

 

[kenmbz]

Some Cities in CA have banned new house builds with Natural Gas connections.
They didn;t ban grilling, just added a mess of new rules to the old ones, like no starter fluid