PALM BEACH, Fla. - A recommendation headed before the Town Council Tuesday would bar landscape services, town workers and anyone else from using gasoline-powered leaf blowers that exceed a certain noise level. 
A Town Council committee voted 2-0 Thursday, recommending that the council adopt the noise-abatement regulation. Councilman Jack McDonald and Sam McLendon make up the Ordinances, Rules and Standards Committee.
The measure would not take effect until July 1, 2006, so landscape services could gradually phase in the more expensive lower-decibel gas-powered leaf blowers.
The recommendation also calls for the use of all leaf blowers to be restricted to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The measure would prohibit the use of any leaf blower that exceeds a maximum decibel level of 75, measured from a point 25 feet away.
Lawn maintenance equipment is currently excluded from existing regulations that allow maximum decibel levels of 61 during daytime and 55 at night in single-family residential areas. Noise from landscape equipment can exceed 80 decibels, depending on the type of equipment and manufacturer, said Bob Moore, director of the Planning, Zoning and Building Department.
Moore had been asked by the council in April to find ways the town could control noise inside nightclubs and restaurants. He told the committee that problem would be difficult to control through an ordinance, but that the building department is encouraging restaurants, as they apply for building permits to remodel, to use noise-absorbent building materials, furniture and design ideas.