Palm Desert, CA Noise Ordinances: Leaf Blower Rules (2026)

Section 9.24.075 sets both hours and a sound cap for leaf blowers. Subsection A prohibits noise sources associated with property maintenance activity, and all portable blowers, lawnmowers, edgers or similar devices, except from seven a.m. to five-thirty p.m., Monday through Sunday. On government code holidays the code says Not allowed. Golf courses and tennis courts get longer hours of five-thirty a.m. to seven p.m., seven days a week, but the code carves blowers out of that allowance, so a blower on a course is held to the ordinary window.

Subsection C is the decibel cap. No person can willfully make or continue any noise from a portable powered blower above seventy decibels (dBA) measured at the midpoint of a wall area twenty feet long and ten feet high at a horizontal distance fifty feet from the midpoint of the wall, or above seventy-six decibels (dBA) at a horizontal distance of twenty-four feet using a sound level meter. Section 9.24.020 defines a portable powered blower as any mechanically powered device, regardless of the source of power, that is not stationary and is used to blow leaves, dirt or other debris off sidewalks, lawns or other surfaces, so the limits cover gas, battery and electric units alike. Section 9.24.030 also lists leaf blowers among the sources subject to its zone decibel table.

Subsection D bars operating a blower in a way that lets dirt, dust, debris, leaves, grass clippings or cuttings blow onto neighboring property or the public right-of-way, and requires the user or property occupant to remove the waste and dispose of it in a sanitary manner. Subsection B exempts municipal maintenance activities from the hours in subsection A. Equipment that constitutes a public nuisance can be abated as otherwise provided in the code even inside the permitted hours.