Every few months someone in a Dunwoody or Brookhaven neighborhood group asks whether gas leaf blowers are banned yet. The short answer is no, and under current Georgia law they can’t be. The longer answer is that all three cities already regulate when landscapers can run them, DeKalb County is talking about a noise cap that would effectively rule them out, and the direction of travel is obvious. Here’s the state of play as of September 2026.
The state law that blocks a ban
In 2023 Georgia passed Senate Bill 145, the “Landscape Equipment and Agricultural Fairness Act,” now O.C.G.A. 36-60-30. It says no city or county may “distinguish gasoline-powered leaf blowers from any other gasoline-powered, electric, or similar such equipment.” Two exceptions: a city can regulate equipment used on its own property, and it can run programs to encourage battery tools. So Dunwoody, Sandy Springs and Brookhaven can’t ban gas blowers, and none has tried.
What they can do is regulate noise and hours for everyone, and they do.
Dunwoody
The noise ordinance (Sec. 18-19) bars landscape contractors from running mowers and blowers weekdays before 7:30 a.m. or after 8:30 p.m., Saturdays before 8 a.m. or after 8:30 p.m., and at all on Sundays and holidays. Homeowners working on their own yards are exempt.
Sandy Springs
Construction and commercial landscaping are allowed Monday through Friday 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Saturday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; none on Sundays or holidays. The city lists it among its most common code violations, alongside grass over ten inches.
Brookhaven
The 2016 noise ordinance bars landscaping and yard tools between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., and before 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
DeKalb County
In August 2026 county commissioners discussed a countywide noise ordinance capping daytime noise at 65 decibels, which would effectively rule out gas mowers and blowers. The vote was delayed for committee amendments, and enforcement would need decibel meters. It would apply to unincorporated DeKalb, not the cities, but it’s the live local story and the cities watch the county.
What the rest of the country is doing
Well over a hundred U.S. cities restrict or ban gas blowers, California stopped the sale of new gas-powered ones in 2024, and the case against them keeps getting stronger on both noise and air-quality grounds. Georgia went the other way with the 2023 preemption, which means change here will come from HOAs, commercial property owners and homeowners choosing quiet, not from city hall.
What this means for your HOA or property
An HOA can require quieter equipment from its own vendors, and a growing number do; it’s the one lever the state law leaves alone. A commercial property manager can write “battery equipment during business hours” into a maintenance contract. A homeowner can hire a crew that doesn’t need the ordinance.
The honest comparison
A two-stroke gas blower runs around 100 decibels at the operator and carries several houses away. A commercial battery blower is roughly 30 decibels quieter, which the ear hears as about one-eighth the loudness. The same Edmunds test that gets quoted everywhere found a two-stroke blower put out more smog-forming hydrocarbons in half an hour than a full-size pickup did on a very long drive. That’s the reason we’ve been all-electric from the start and why the City of Dunwoody gave us its Sustainability Hero Award for it. Nobody made us.
Where this shows up in the actual work
A rule about blowers only matters if it changes what happens in your yard, so here is where the rest of it is written down. The lawn program we run without a gas engine anywhere on site is set out for Dunwoody, and separately for Sandy Springs, where the river buffers change how a lawn near the bank ought to be treated, and for Brookhaven, where the leaves off a mature canopy are the biggest free input the lawn gets all year and mulch-mowing them in beats paying to haul them off.
If your question is really about the schedule rather than the machine, which it usually is on a property with tenants in it, that side is on the Perimeter Center and commercial maintenance pages, and for a house on the year-round maintenance page. The city pages for Dunwoody, Sandy Springs and Brookhaven carry the rest of what each one expects from a contractor working a residential street.
Questions people ask
Are gas leaf blowers banned in Georgia? No. State law (O.C.G.A. 36-60-30, 2023) prevents cities and counties from banning or restricting them differently from electric equipment.
Can my HOA ban gas blowers? Yes. The state law limits governments, not private associations. Many HOAs are now writing quiet-equipment requirements into vendor contracts.
What hours can landscapers work in Dunwoody? Weekdays 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., Saturdays 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., never Sundays or holidays.
Is electric equipment as powerful as gas? For commercial-grade batteries, yes. Our crews run only electric, including on hardscape and drainage jobs.
Will the DeKalb noise cap apply to my city? No; it would cover unincorporated DeKalb. Dunwoody, Brookhaven, Chamblee and Doraville set their own rules.
If you’d like a crew that never needs the exemption, call (404) 369-0989 or book a free site visit. More on our eco-friendly lawn care.
Sources: law.justia.com (O.C.G.A. 36-60-30); noisefree.org on SB 145; Dunwoody Sec. 18-19; sandyspringsga.gov common violations; Rough Draft Atlanta (Brookhaven, Jan 2016); WSB-TV (DeKalb, Aug 2026).
