The Brief

As the climate crisis escalates, more cities are doubling down on gas leaf blower bans. And the sound of electric leaf blowers — decibels lower — is in the air.

The amount of pollution these small machines create is significant:

• Using a gas leaf blower for just one hour spews the same amount of smog-forming pollution as driving a gas passenger car 1,100 miles, according to state data. 
• Nationwide, a recent study found that lawn equipment alone — such as leaf blowers and lawn mowers — emit more planet-heating carbon dioxide than the entire city of L.A. does in a single year.

For decades, Southland cities have tried to nix gas leaf blowers. Beverly Hills has officially banned them since 1976. West Hollywood since 1986. Santa Monica since 1991. And L.A. since 1998.

Enforcing leaf blower bans

Pasadena’s ban on gas leaf blowers went into effect in April — and it's one of the few cities doubling down on enforcing it. Since the ban went into effect, the city has seen monthly complaints about leaf blowers double. City inspectors have issued citations for as much as $200 to gardeners who haven’t switched to electric.

A sign in Pasadena spreading awareness about the city's leaf blower ban.

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The city first issues a 30-day warning to get into compliance, then there are escalating fines of $100, $200, and $500. The fourth and highest citation is $1000. If gardeners can provide documents that they’ve purchased equipment, but haven’t received it yet, they won’t be fined, according to the city.

“We believe that enforcement of this ban will improve our air quality, public health and also address issues with respect to noise pollution, which is one of the chief complaints we receive with respect to these leaf blowers,” said Israel Del Toro, the deputy director of Pasadena’s Planning and Community Development Department.

The city has conducted several workshops for local landscapers to test out equipment and learn about the law, but for many small business owners, the mandate is hurting their business and pushing others out of the industry altogether.

“We’re trying to survive” 

Florencio Molina has run his gardening business for 30 years. He recently purchased an electric leaf blower because he has a couple of clients in Pasadena. He said the battery technology at this point can’t keep up with the pace and hours of the work.

“It's good for like two hours, so if you don't have a second battery, you're not going to finish your jobs,” Molina said.

Molina was able to purchase an extra battery. But he said another issue is those batteries are really heavy. Just like electric cars, electric leaf blowers can be more than twice as heavy as gas ones — a big lift for someone on their feet all day.

“We get more tired using electric,” Molina said. “It will affect our business.”

Still, Molina added, there’s always a tradeoff.

“It will affect our body,” he said. “For the future, you're protecting your lungs.”

At 63 years old, Molina said he’s close to retiring anyway, so his younger protégé will have to deal with the changes brought by electrification.

Florencio Molina picks up the battery to attach to his electric leaf blower on a recent afternoon. (Molina declined to have his face shown in the photo).

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But landscaper Luis Rodriguez said he’s considering leaving the business altogether. He was recently issued a warning for using a gas leaf blower in Pasadena, which is why he was buying a brand new electric one when I met him.

“We’re not making a lot of money in this business,” Rodriguez said. “We’re trying to survive. And now, they are pushing us to quit this job.”

Electric leaf blowers can cost four times as much as gas ones — upwards of $2,600 for the most powerful commercial models, as opposed to about $600 for gas.

Rodriguez said a few of his clients have helped him purchase electric equipment. But since most of his clients are in the city, and with the technology as it currently stands, he’d need to purchase an extra battery or several, which are the most expensive part of an electric kit.

Those costs are a big part of why, at 55, he’s considering closing his landscaping business and moving into another industry.

“I was thinking just leave Pasadena first, and then find another job, maybe work for a company,” he said. “Why don’t they go with the big business? They go with us first. All the time they go with the poor people first.”

Luis Rodriguez just purchased a new electric leaf blower because he received a warning for using a gas one in Pasadena. (Rodriguez declined to have his photo taken).

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Funding to help small businesses transition

The state launched a program last year offering vouchers of up to $400 to help small businesses purchase electric equipment, but after providing vouchers for more than 62,000 pieces of electric lawn and garden tools, the program — which started with $27 million in the pot — has already run out of funding.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District also has a voucher program, partially funded by the state, that covers up to 85% of the cost of commercial landscape equipment. That program, which is also available to local governments, schools, and nonprofits, requires landscapers to turn in their gas-powered tool. (The agency also has a rebate program for residents to buy electric lawn mowers).

That program’s funding opened in March 2023 with $4.6 million available. Now there’s $3.4 million left, which is meant to last through 2034, though the agency plans to work to find additional funding if the money runs out before then.

“That incentive approach combined with regulation will be necessary for an equitable transition to cleaner technology,” Kim White, a spokesperson for the agency, said in a statement to LAist.

Outsize burden on the “little guy”

Alvaro Huerta, an associate professor at Cal Poly Pomona, helped organize the Association of Latin American Gardeners of Los Angeles in the mid-1990s to fight L.A.’s ban on leaf blowers back then. While that fight was largely about the jail sentence that came with L.A.’s original proposed ban (there’s no jail sentence for noncompliance anymore, thanks to the organization’s efforts), Huerta said the current approach has a disproportionate impact on largely Latino small businesses, workers and immigrants.

Local landscaper Luis Rodriguez holds the battery for his new electric leaf blower (Rodriguez declined to have his photo taken).

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“This is something that we were arguing in 1996, that they should go after the manufacturers,” Huerta said. “Why are you attacking the little guy? I do believe that they need to be phased out because I am an environmentalist. However, they should be phased out just like cars are being phased out, in a more realistic time frame. The way they're doing it is they're banning them now, and they're punishing them now.”

California’s phase out plan for the trucking industry does allow smaller companies to have more time to transition. As for lawn equipment, in 1990 the state became the first in the world to incentivize lawn equipment manufacturers to create cleaner products. That policy was later enforced nationwide and has helped reduce pollution from these machines significantly.

But the technology (and cost) hasn’t improved enough for commercial landscapers to choose electric over gas, and levels of pollution from them still haven’t fallen — pound for pound — as much as pollution from cars and trucks. In fact, as more people switch to electric cars, the state expects pollution from small lawn and garden equipment to be double the pollution from light-duty passenger cars by 2031.

A commercial electric leaf blower.

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That’s why a statewide law banning the sale of new gas-powered lawn and other small outdoor equipment goes into effect in January, a further incentive for manufacturers that will likely impact the entire nation, as California’s clean car rules have in the past.

A changing lawn equipment industry

Commercial electric leaf blowers sold at Lawn Mower Corner in Pasadena.

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For the vendors that sell this lawn equipment, the story’s a little different. Charles Kim helps run his family’s long-time business Lawn Mower Corner in Pasadena. He said 2023 has been a great year for sales because of the electric leaf blower mandates.

“But we look at it as a short term gain, with a long term pain,” Kim said.

He noted that about 40% of their business right now is maintaining older gas equipment, such as changing oil and cleaning carburetors. Electric equipment, on the other hand, requires very little, if any, ongoing maintenance.

He said to adapt, the store is diversifying the type of products they sell. For example, they’re expanding from largely commercial equipment to other types of lawn and garden supplies.

“That's what we had to do to not put our eggs in one basket,” Kim said.

And for now, he said they’re stockpiling gas equipment to sell into the new year because the statewide rule banning the sale of all new gas-powered lawn equipment goes into effect in January.

A new law will require local agencies to publicly disclose audio recordings and written records of 911 calls originating from privately run immigration detention facilities. The bill was prompted by CalMatters reporting on alleged sexual assaults at the Otay Mesa Detention Center.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 423, called the Detention Facility Transparency Act, on Tuesday. It was one of 21 immigration-related bills in a package his office announced the same day.

The law will require local agencies to turn over recordings and written records of 911 calls from privately run detention facilities, if a member of the public requests them. It includes an exception if an active investigation is underway and requires redacting the names of affected individuals.

“Well, it goes without saying, these past two years, Donald Trump has brought fear and has brought anxiety, disruption and stress to our immigrant communities,” Newsom said in a recorded video statement on his website.

“So, today, I sign a number of bills to strengthen transparency and to strengthen accountability and oversight over federal immigration enforcement and civil detention in our state,” the governor said.

State Sen. Lena Gonzalez, a Democrat from Long Beach, introduced SB 423 as state investigations and courts found serious gaps in essential medical care within the facilities. She said the aim was to stop private operators, and the agencies that work alongside them, from keeping what happens behind detention walls from the public's view.

In February, L.A. Taco reported that detainees inside Otay Mesa were throwing lotion bottles wrapped with notes about conditions inside over the wall of the facility to organizers standing outside.

“For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh," an Otay Mesa detainee wrote, the news outlet reported. "We are all in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We are all constantly sick.”

Gonzalez, who is chair of the Legislative Latino Caucus, said no person “should have to resort to throwing notes over the walls of a detention facility to have their needs met and their voices heard.”

Earlier this year, CalMatters sought information, including 911 audio records and other reports, about alleged serious incidents at detention facilities through a California Public Records Act request. While a San Diego County sheriff’s spokesperson said the agency was not investigating those cases, he said he was unable to turn over additional records because they were part of “a law enforcement investigation.”

“When journalists and reporters attempted to obtain records about reported incidents at these facilities through the Public Records Act, they faced severe pushback from law enforcement, citing vague investigatory records exemptions, despite there being no active investigation,” said Gonzalez.

Immigrant Defense Advocates and the First Amendment Coalition co-sponsored the bill.

“The governor has sent a powerful message: No more secrecy. SB 423 makes clear that 911 calls and related records about events in detention must be released upon request. This will shed more light on a notoriously opaque system, leading to stronger oversight and accountability,” Ginny LaRoe, Advocacy Director, First Amendment Coalition, said in a written statement.

Gonzalez’s bill was one of several detention oversight bills Newsom signed Tuesday. Others impose a new 25% tax on private detention facilities, expand health, safety and oversight requirements for the centers, and add to the state attorney general’s oversight role.

The new laws take effect Jan. 1.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Six Flags Magic Mountain is retiring its famous X2 roller coaster amid lawsuits alleging serious brain injury caused by the ride.

The Southern California theme park said Tuesday that it is permanently shuttering the ride after nearly 20 years. Six Flags recently settled a wrongful-death lawsuit from the family of a 22-year-old man who died after riding the coaster in 2022, and three more lawsuits alleging traumatic brain injuries were filed last week.

“While X2 consistently passed a multitude of safety tests, we have decided to close the ride because we believe it’s the right thing to do,” park President Brian Oerding said in an online announcement. “Ride safety is a cornerstone of our business, and when we see guest confidence affected, we take it seriously.”

The ride has been closed since the evening of July 12, after two women who rode the coaster less than a week apart both needed to be rushed to the hospital after they exited.

One of them, 25-year-old Naomi Greer-Wilkinson, collapsed shortly after the ride ended and was found to have massive brain bleeding inside the skull that required emergency brain surgery. She remains in a vegetative state in the hospital, unable to speak or move and dependent on a ventilator. Her family filed a lawsuit against Six Flags on her behalf.

Her attorneys said more than 100 people claimed they suffered brain injuries from the roller coaster in the past two years, and more lawsuits would be filed in the coming weeks.

According to the Six Flags Magic Mountain website, the X2 roller coaster reaches a top speed of 76 mph (122 kph) and has a total length of 3,610 feet (1,100 meters). The seats rotate 360 degrees “so your body will be flipping around the entire time,” and the ride features two “raven turns” — half loops that turn into sheer drops midway.

It debuted at the park in 2002 under the name X as the world’s first “fourth-dimension” roller coaster and reopened in 2008 as X2 with new trains and special effects. The uniqueness of the ride drew thrill-seekers from around the world and garnered a fervent fanbase.

The park settled a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of Christopher Hawley, a 22-year-old who died the day after he rode X2. He was taken to the hospital after the ride with severe brain bleeding. The medical examiner’s office said his death was from blunt head trauma. The case was settled at the end of August, a few days before the trial was scheduled to start.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the administration to resume, for now, deportations of migrants to countries that are not identified in their removal orders, handing President Donald Trump another victory in his aggressive immigration agenda.

The court also said it would take up the case for full oral argument in December.

The court's brief order granting the petition did not outline a reason for staying a lower-court order that blocked the third-country deportations. It noted the court's three liberal justices objected to staying the order.

Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices the third-country deportation policy amounted to "an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens" in court papers earlier this month. The administration said it has used the policy to deport tens of thousands of noncitizens to Mexico and countries in Africa and Latin America after the migrants' home countries refused to accept them.

"While certain aliens may benefit from stalling their removal, the Nation does not," Sauer wrote in an emergency application Sept. 24.

The action by the high court marks the third time the justices have rejected efforts by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston to pause the deportations, which the judge said violate due process rights and fail to give detainees meaningful notice to raise arguments that they have credible fears of torture or abuse in the countries where they could be sent.

The National Immigration Litigation Alliance, which is representing migrants facing deportation, said in court papers that their clients are facing significant harms.

"The record shows that class members removed without meaningful notice or an opportunity to present country-specific protection claims have faced prolonged and arbitrary detention, beatings and sexual assault, disappearance, and chain refoulement to countries from which the United States had already granted them protection," wrote lawyer Trina Realmuto. "These harms cannot be undone."

The Department of Homeland Security said Murphy's rulings have created a logistical nightmare, including canceled flights, potential diplomatic clashes, and a lag in removing people convicted of assault and drug crimes.

The administration argued that if a country has assured Secretary of State Marco Rubio that it will not engage in persecution or torture, that should be enough to deport a noncitizen to a country that's not their own.

The Supreme Court's conservative supermajority has recognized the president has substantial authority over the border. Last summer, in a 6-to-3 decision, the court ruled President Trump has sweeping power to end the temporary protected status program for people who can't return to their home countries because of wars and natural disasters.

Copyright 2026 NPR

The bell had already rung on a recent morning at Newport Beach’s Ensign Intermediate School. But two of the school’s students hadn’t made it to class. Instead, they were sitting on a sidewalk across from campus, detained by a police officer for parking their e-bikes on the street.

The situation at Ensign has gotten messy since the school district, Newport-Mesa Unified, voted to ban e-bikes from middle and elementary school campuses, citing safety concerns. Many students kept riding their e-bikes to school anyway, parking them in swarms in the surrounding neighborhood.

The neighbors did not like this. Shouting matches ensued between students and homeowners. At least one student returned from class to find her tires deflated.

The city responded to the tension by putting up “No e-bike parking” signs on several streets.

The city of Newport Beach prohibited e-bikes on some streets around Ensign Intermediate School after neighbors complained.

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“I wouldn't want it in my neighborhood either, like, I get it,” said Corey Gulbranson, who got a $100 parking ticket on behalf of his daughter, one of the Ensign students detained for allegedly illegally parking her e-bike. “But at the end of the day, we're just trying to get our kids to school on a legal mode of transportation.”

Crucial teen commuting tools? Or dangerous devices?

E-bikes and significantly more powerful e-motorcycles have become very popular in many Orange County suburbs, where the streets are wide, public transit is spotty, and distances are longer than some are willing to pedal on a regular bike. For teens and tweens, e-bikes provide a taste of independence. They also relieve parents of some of their driving duties. Plus, e-bikes can replace polluting cars.

But their popularity has brought an alarming increase in serious injuries, especially among young riders.

At Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, e-bike crashes are now sending more kids to the ER than any other cause, according to Dr. Tetsuya Takeuchi, the hospital’s trauma medical director. More than 70% of those patients had some level of head injury, from minor concussions to devastating brain damage, he said, often because they were not wearing a helmet.

But even Takeuchi recognizes the nearly irresistible draw of e-bikes.

“If you ride one, you realize how easy it is to go everywhere with it,” he said.  “I am not by any means surprised at how popular this is, especially amongst kids.”

‘Bicycle-shaped devices’

Not all e-bikes are equally fast, or equally dangerous. California uses a three-tier system, developed by the bike industry, to classify e-bikes depending on:

• engine power
• max speed
• whether the bike has pedals 
• whether a cyclist has to use those pedals before the engine kicks in 

California law prohibits children under age 16 from riding Class 3 e-bikes with engines capable of reaching 28 miles per hour. In reality, though, many kids are riding e-vehicles that go faster — in some cases, much faster.

“There are lots of what I will call 'bicycle-shaped devices' being ridden,” said Asha Weinstein Agrawal, a research associate at the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University. “Some of them are legal e-bikes. Some of them are not.”

Agrawal recently co-authored a 210-page report on e-bike safety. It includes data collected from middle and high schools in Marin and San Mateo counties, which showed that only 12% of students’ e-bikes fit into the legal classification system. The other 88% were more powerful than legally allowed under California law.

A Newport Beach Police officer tickets a middle schooler for parking her e-bike on the street across from Ensign Middle School on Sept. 4, 2026.

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Any bicycle-shaped device that goes faster than 30 miles per hour is technically an e-motorcycle, which requires a special driver’s license and, if ridden on public roads, insurance and registration.

Agrawal said it’s hard for parents, and even police officers, to figure out what’s legal and what’s not.

“Nobody understands this,” she said. “It’s very hard to enforce.”

The crackdown

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has taken some unusual approaches to addressing the e-bike dilemma. To date, he has pressed criminal charges — including for child endangerment — against four parents after their children were involved in collisions, all of them on e-motorcycles, not e-bikes.

One of those parents, a woman from Aliso Viejo, was charged with three felonies, including involuntary manslaughter, after her 14-year-old son allegedly struck and killed an 81-year-old man while doing wheelies in the street in Lake Forest on an e-motorcycle souped up to reach 60 miles per hour.

People with e-bikes, e-scooters and e-motos move through the long line at the Orange County District Attorney's buyback event at Angel Stadium, Sept. 13, 2026.

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The DA’s office said it has also sent letters to retailers reminding them of a ban on selling products used to modify e-bikes to go faster than legally allowed.

Spitzer recently tried another novel approach: buybacks. On a recent Sunday, hundreds of people brought their e-bikes, e-scooters and e-motos to an event at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, hoping to turn them in for up to a thousand dollars in gift cards. The county event was paid for with $100,000 in asset forfeiture funds.

One man near the front of the line said he had arrived at 1 a.m. By the time the event started at 10 a.m., sheriff’s deputies were turning people away.

“Holy smokes,” Spitzer said from behind a podium mounted in the parking lot. “Look at the participation. … And you can see why, because we have a serious problem here in Orange County and across the nation with individuals who have e-bikes and e-motorcycles.”

Spitzer spoke about the dangers, but also the attractiveness of a high-powered personal vehicle, especially for teen boys.

 “We're not gonna change our internal DNA about who we are as young people and the fact we wanna go places, and we wanna experiment, and quite frankly, we like fast things,” he said. “ But the fact of the matter is when you have a machine, and you don't understand its capabilities, you can find yourself in harm's way very quickly before you can control that mechanism.”

Orange County District Attorney is testing out a range of strategies to crack down on illegal e-bikes and e-motos, including a buyback event at Angel Stadium on Sept. 13, 2026.

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Are unsafe riders ‘ruining it for other people’?

Paul Dumont drove to the buyback event all the way from Chatsworth in hopes of exchanging five e-bikes he had bought for his kids and grandkids.

“They got injured on them when we first got them, so they've been sitting in storage,” he said of the bikes.

Dumont said he wished he had bought less powerful e-bikes. “But I bought them the best ones,” he said. “I thought they'd be better.”

Denise Mills and her 17-year-old son Nathanael came from Torrance to turn in three e-motorcycles that he had been riding to and from his high school last year. He stopped after the school told him it was illegal. A new state law defining e-motorcycles took effect in January.

A student at Ensign Middle School runs to campus after parking his e-bike at a nearby park, Sept. 4, 2026.

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“That was very unfortunate because it's his primary source of transportation,” Mills said. “Now it's his dad and I.”

Nathanael said he had logged several thousand miles without an accident.

“ Partially it's, like, people ruining it for other people,” he said of efforts to tighten the rules for young riders.

Local leaders grapple with the flood of e-bikes

Cities and school districts are testing a variety of approaches to decrease e-bike crashes and injuries, from prohibiting riding on sidewalks to outright bans for young riders. The Brea City Council has even discussed using police drones to follow unsafe youth riders home in order to inform their parents.

In a more typical approach, the Huntington Beach City School District requires all student e-bike commuters to pass a safety course in order to get a permit to park their bike on campus. Newport-Mesa has a similar program for high schoolers.

Marin County limits youth under age 16 to riding Class 1 “pedal-assist” e-bikes, which have motors that kick in only while pedaling, and shut off once the bike reaches 20 miles per hour. The ban on more powerful e-bikes for young riders is part of a pilot program approved by the state legislature that sunsets in 2029.

At the federal level, O.C. Congressman Dave Min, D-Irvine, co-authored a bill earlier this year, the Safe SPEEDS Act, that would develop nationwide safety standards for e-bikes, including minimum age recommendations.

A dilemma for parents

Parents of student e-bike commuters have said they do not oppose regulating the vehicles, and they want authorities to crack down on dangerous and illegal riding. But an outright ban goes too far, they’ve said.

“ I know there are kids that are a little wild,” said Kellie Newcombe, whose 13-year-old daughter is still riding her pedal-assist bike from their home in Costa Mesa to Ensign Intermediate School in Newport Beach.

“That is not my child. That is not her friends. They are so ridiculously safe and by the book,” she said. “It's just super frustrating that they would say every kid cannot ride an e-bike.”

A spokesperson for Newport-Mesa Unified told LAist in an email that the school district’s new e-bike restrictions have gone smoothly and are helping to reinforce safety. But that is not how Gulbranson and Newcombe see it.

“We've had my daughter intimidated by multiple neighbors now,” Gulbranson said. “This whole guise of doing it under safety is totally misguided.”

Newcombe said she worries about her daughter’s safety more now that an increasing number of parents are driving their kids to school.

“They're in a rush because the traffic is insane,” she said. Plus, her daughter now has to cross a busy street to get to campus.

Newcombe said she wishes the school district would work with local leaders and police to enforce e-bike rules and to create safer paths to school for responsible riders.