BLOWERS KICK UP CLASS DIVISION; BAN SPLITS WORKERS, CITY'S HOMEOWNERS.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

From the moment the City Council voted last week to ban leaf blowers from Los Angeles, the city's class and ethnic divisions split open like an earthquake fault.

Before the vote Tuesday, actors Julie Newmar, Peter Graves and others from posh Westside neighborhoods sat on one side of the City Council chamber.

Well-dressed and passionately spoken, each demanded that council members ban the leaf blowers they said pollute our skies and drive Angelenos to distraction with their noise.

On the other side sat members of the Association of Latin American Gardeners, clad in green caps and jackets, who pleaded with council members to spare them the basic tool of their trade.

Outside, 10 gardeners and two sympathizers lay lethargic in the fourth day of a hunger strike, vowing to fast to the death if necessary to protect their right to use blowers.

The council, in a 9-6 vote, approved enforcement measures. Two days later, Mayor Richard Riordan signed the ban, which takes effect 30 days after an official notice is published. The fine will be $270 for anyone using a gas-powered blower in a residential neighborhood.

``We're fighting against rich celebrities,'' said Fernando Chavez, 33, a Simi Valley resident who helps with his father's Canoga Park gardening business.

``What are you going to do? They have the money. If our mayor votes against them, he's in trouble. He has to vote against us, because we're the poor.''

Wealthy and poor

Like no other ordinance in recent years, the ban separated the wealthy from the working poor, drawing a line between those promoting quality of life and those struggling to make a living.

While affluent celebrities lobbied for the ban as an anti-pollution measure, immigrant gardeners said banning the leaf blower is like removing their right hand - the linchpin of their livelihood.

``It's like taking the hammer away from a carpenter,'' said North Hollywood gardener Manuel Jimenez, 58.

To drive home that point, the gardeners continued on a weeklong hunger strike. Consuming nothing but sports drinks and water, the group, which dwindled after several members sickened or left, swore to fast to the death if the law weren't rescinded or modified.

The remaining strikers ended their fast Friday when council members Jackie Goldberg, who favored the ban, and Mike Hernandez, who opposed it, signed an agreement committing to hold hearings on it.

The hearings, the agreement stated, will seek alternative power sources for leaf blowers, examine whether gas-powered blowers can be made safer and quieter and consider whether the city can provide economic assistance programs to gardeners making the transition to new technologies.

``I think it's what we wanted,'' said gardeners association leader Adrian Alvarez of the promise of hearings. ``Unfortunately, it comes as the ordinance is coming into effect.''

May strike again

He said he is prepared to wage a hunger strike again if the hearings fail to yield results. ``We can't wait five years until they solve this.''

Other gardeners question why such a compromise wasn't considered earlier.

``The whole point is, why didn't somebody come out and say, let's try to work out something and educate the gardeners?'' said Roy Imazu, 66, a Sun Valley gardener who serves as legislative analyst for the predominantly Japanese-American Southern California Gardeners Federation. ``But nobody ever approached us.''

Many gardeners fear the new law may force them into poverty.

Manuel Jimenez came to the United States 24 years ago, raised eight children, bought a house and built a gardening business. His income from 30 clients averages about $1,500 a month. About half goes to his mortgage, and the rest pays insurance on his two work trucks and family van, and living costs for himself, his wife and youngest son.

Enough remains to maintain food on the table. He proudly displayed his thriving papaya tree, backyard barbecue pit and cage of quail and doves. Yet his yard is barren of grass.

The leaf blower ban could double his work time, he said, reducing the number of clients he can serve and slashing his income in half. Finding another job at 58 would be tough, he said.

Along his route last Thursday, Jimenez stopped at the Sherman Oaks home of longtime client Delores Immel. After 15 years, Immel said, Jimenez has become a trusted figure in her life, occasionally dropping off gifts of his wife's homemade tamales and helping with extra tasks that Immel's husband, ill with bone and vascular diseases, can't perform.

Jimenez cleans leaves off the roof and rain gutters, fertilizes and reseeds the lawn, and trims tree limbs.

``I think if they want to regulate the blowers they should regulate those who make them, not those who use them,'' said Immel, 66. ``They don't take the car away from the traveling salesman if it doesn't meet emissions standards. They say get it fixed or get a new car.''

Avoiding device

Jimenez and his son, Manuel Jr., 16, spent about eight minutes clearing Immel's lawn with a leaf blower Thursday, but said they had been avoiding using the device for about a week. ``We don't want no trouble with the police,'' Manuel Jr. said.

And residents say that's what gardeners will get if they continue to use the devices. Ron Recasner, a Van Nuys actor who works from his home, said the blowers leave him with pounding headaches as they blare from 7:30 in the morning to 8 at night on weekdays and weekends.

``The sound of a blower just goes through me, it opens me up like a can opener,'' he said, as one droned in the background behind him.

Some hope gardeners will voluntarily comply.

``I don't want to do any arresting or anything like that, but the police can be called, and of course they can cite the owners as well as the gardeners,'' said Bill Sherinyan, 65, of Woodland Hills.

He scoffs at gardeners' complaints that banning blowers will double their work time. His gardener of 21 years services his three-quarter acre property in one hour, never once blasting a blower, he said.

``I'm certainly in favor of banning those mind-blowing, exhaust-billowing, ear-deafening, storm-drain-clogging, air-polluting, quality of life-destroying leaf blowers,'' Sherinyan said.

Mary Kaminer, 58, of Valley View, jumped ahead of the law's enactment and called police Wednesday, receiving a house call from three officers who declared their hands were tied.

Sgt. Kent Pollard said police were awaiting orders on enforcing the ban, but offered to warn the gardeners that their devices would soon be illegal.

For Kaminer, her body riddled with lung disease, arteriosclerosis and osteoporosis, that was little consolation. The blowers' fumes send flames of pain through her lungs that her one allotted pain pill a day can't alleviate, she said.

Health threat

Although California Air Resources Board spokesman Jerry Martin said manufacturers cleaned up the blowers' emissions in accordance with state regulations, ``I think it's safe to say those types of machines can emit easily 10 times more than a new 1998 car. They're very, very dirty.''

The pollutants emitted - hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide - can exacerbate lung and heart diseases, he said.

Once the blower ban takes effect, Kaminer said, ``I'm going to be able to relax a little bit, and know that I'm going to be able to live maybe another year longer and play with my grandchildren.''

Still, even she suggested the city should take a conciliatory tack. ``How can we show the Latino community that we do not dislike them if we do not help them by loaning them money to buy the new equipment?''

Jimenez said he would have no problem with switching equipment and is hopeful for a compromise. ``It doesn't matter if it's not the same machine. What I don't want is to be left with nothing.''

Daily News Staff Writer Patrick McGreevey contributed to this story.

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Photo

PHOTO Delores Immel of Sherman Oaks shares a smile with Manuel Jimenez, her gardener for 15 years.

Bob Halvorsen/Daily News