Who wants needless noise in their lives?
Not Julie! Not the citizens of Los Angeles.
In one of the most high-profile incidents in her activist career, Julie called attention to the health hazards caused by
high-decibel leafblowers. Her war was WON...when newspapers and national magazines gave major coverage to this
"quality of life" issue!
Originally this was the "fighting page" with Ron-collages and strong defense for Julie's point of view. Now it's more the "historical page" for those who wonder what it was all about...
Oh yes...and for those in chat rooms or message boards (ech, double ech) the page is also around to refute some very base and baseless charges about Julie's motivations which were posted in the heat of battle
Julie's noise pollution fight became national news in December of 1997. Time Magazine covered it and a headline in the Wall Street Journal declared: "If You Want to Hear This Catwoman Hiss, Just Blow in Her Ear..."
"Actress Julie Newmar, Others Battle Noisy Leaf Blowers; L.A. Gardeners in Uproar."
The Journal story began..."To shut out the din of leaf blowers around her Brentwood home, actress Julie Newmar first tried playing Mozart and Handel at full volume. When that didn't work, she started wearing industrial-strength earmuffs. But they made it hard to answer the phone.
"So Ms Newmar, best known as TV's first Catwoman, has gone on the attack.
"Ah, for the sound of rakes and brooms on a walk or driveway," read antiblower leaflets she has plastered around the neighborhood. She has written to the mayor of Los Angeles, threatening to move to New Zealand. And after one neighbor refused to stop his Latino gardener from using a blower, she bought a can of black paint and sprayed the word "ruido" -Spanish for noise- in big letters on the alley outside his house.
"The neighbor promptly filed a vandalism complaint. "At least I got their attention," Ms. Newmar says...."
Yes, our serenity-loving catwoman became the leader for the anti-leafblower forces. (And no, at this time the neighbor involved was not Belushi!) She formed a rallying group with other concerned citizens and helped create a hotline for complaints.
But, surprisingly, this was a bitter fight.
While newspaper editorials and environmental journals were generally in support of a leaf blower ban, gardeners were not. They didn't want to have to back to working with rakes, as most did years before. Back then, Japanese gardeners seemed to be prevalent. Now, most of the cheap labor force is Latino. The "Latino Gardeners Association" suddenly emerged, crying "Racism!"
In print, some insisted that Julie and her burgeoning army (which soon included Meredith Baxter and Peter Graves) should've had "better things to do" than complain about such a "minor" thing as noise.
Worse, in chat rooms and on message boards (rarely the place for intelligent dialogue) some people were throwing out lines about Julie hating Mexicans and being racist.
At the height of the leaf blower controversy, Time Magazine took the side of the gardeners!
This irritated many Julie Newmar fans, including Cy Kottick at Hotmail.com. who posted a rebuttal via Usenet.
Julie was rather amused, so it's quoted here...
Thousands Of Gardeners Hate Julie
Newmar
The rest of the piece: "
TV's Catwoman Julie Newmar is battling 100,000
Latino gardeners who say she pushed them into
poverty.
But she says they should be thanking her!
The problem began when the "Batman" beauty got
gasoline leaf blowers outlawed last month in Los
Angeles.
"The noise is horrible," she told us. "I cannot work� or leave windows open
when a yardman turns on his incredibly noisy blower. Years from now
these workers will be going deaf. They should thank me!" She also
believes the machines create too much dust.
But that's hogwash to Alvaro Huerta, a spokesman for the Association of Latin American Gardeners of Los Angeles.
"Newmar is exaggerating," he declared. "The rich home owners want
perfect lawns, but they don't want to hear a little noise for about 20
minutes every two weeks."
Without the blowers, the yardmen can do only half as many lawns, said
Huerta. That means their earnings will plunge."
Fortunately for all peace-loving citizens, on December 17th, the L.A. City Council voted 9-5 to prohibit the use of high-decible leaf blowers within 500 feet of homes.
Violators of the leaf blower law face a $100 fine, plus $170 in court
assessments."It is very clear that
there is a ban that will go into effectnot allowing the leaf
blowers to be used in residential areas," Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski announced. Public spirited citzens can even perform a "citizen's arrest" on violators.
As Julie told me at the time, "We won! We won! We got the ban passed, and the papers said that I led the charge. I'm really proud of myself."
She gave me a copy of the speech she made at the L.A. City Council Hearing, December 17th 1997...
In her speech Julie didn't insult the gardeners; she was sympathetic to their plight. She felt noisy leafblowers were damaging to them, too. She told the council:
"If you did have vision, you would see a class action lawsuit in your future due to the deafness of these workers, these misused workers. here are your victims...once you lose your hearing you never get it back...let me tell you something. There is no such thing as a workable decibel level...it's like being a little bit pregnant. You got damage and you can't fix it."
At the end of the speech, she took issue with the way that a simple matter like a noise ordinance became a "racial" issue (whites vs Latino gardeners)...
"And lastly...the worst evil of all...the worst evil some of you are engaged in. DON'T YOU EVER pit brown races against white races or vice-versa. Don't you EVER pit the richer against the less rich. The educated against the less educated. We are all different...all of us are valuable to one another. Except those who pollute, violate or poison. Yes folks, let's ban these stinkers. Or you will NOT have heard the last of us."
Julie appeared on "The Daily Show," "Entertainment Tonight" and various news broadcasts. Her message remained clear: a quiet environment, free of constant noise and sudden bursts of cacaphony, is what mankind needs. Cats, too.
Updating the story in April of 1998, THE NEW YORKER re-iterated that leafblowers are a menace: "The leaf blower is an abominable garden tool: it's loud, like a chainsaw going full tilt, and spews as much pollution in one hour as a car driven from New York to Washington D.C."
They quoted Julie's protests: "It's not the way to treat Mother Earth," Newmar said. "Nobody's lawn has to look like a billiard table..." Later they used Julie's description of a leafblower: "Julie Newmar calls it "a three-foot extension of a gardener's masculinity."
The magazine reported that the defeated gardeners should be getting some relief. Newly designed leafblowers, which run on electricity, may soon make lawn care easy...and quiet.
And so, in addition to all her other accomplishments, you can add: Julie Newmar, ACTIVIST!"