What are city councils and state legislatures for, if not banning things? Some local leaders get creative in what they outlaw, but typically, the novel-seeming bans are really trends.
The banners tend to be followers, often marching to the tune of some special interest group, but sometimes, they’re just chasing the headlines — you know, to be like the popular towns.
Natural gas bans started just before the pandemic but are spreading these days. While Congress tries to nudge people away from cooking with gas, using subsidies in the recent and misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, the city of Eugene, Oregon, has simply banned it.
All new construction in Eugene will have to use 100% electric fixtures, and gas stoves or water heaters or furnaces are to be phased out of existing homes by 2035, according to the July ordinance.
Gasoline is the other hydrocarbon on the ban list. The sustainability committee of Seattle’s city council voted 4-0 in August to ban the use of gas-powered leaf blowers. This follows California and Washington, D.C. Some municipalities’ anti-gasoline laws extend to weed whackers and chain saws.
If a town can ban the Stihl MS-881, surely it can ban the AR-15, Naperville, Illinois, concluded. In mid-August, the city council voted 8-1 to outlaw the sale of high-powered rifles. Mayor Steve Chirico admitted the ban was largely symbolic, but Robert Bevis, the owner of the local gun shop, said the ban would put him out of business.
Los Angeles voted to ban homeless encampments near schools. In Rhode Island, marijuana is legal, but the town of Warren wants to ban smoking it in public. Lubbock, Texas, and some other cities have banned abortions within town limits.
Bangor, Maine, is banning flavored vapes and cigarettes. Plenty of cities are banning “conversion therapy,” which can mean psychological interventions aimed at changing sexual orientation, but it could also mean efforts to dissuade teenagers from having gay sex.
Not all of these bans will stand. Denver, for instance, banned food trucks in parts of downtown, but lawsuits are already threatening this ban.
America is both the land of the free and the land of local democracy. The two don’t always go together comfortably.
