A reader on the West Coast writes in with an observation of leaf blower use in his area:

I've been wondering more and more about leaf blowers. In the area I'm living in, there's a new housing development where roads and plumbing have already been put in place, but the individual buildings are still being worked on.
One Saturday afternoon, we could hear a loud noise from the development zone. Two workers were going around with one leaf blower each. I couldn't understand the point of it - there are barely any leaves in the area, and from what I could see the road surface was clean. I've noticed similar examples in some other places (like some lone guy blowing away leaves outside Starbucks) but at least then, there really were leaves.
I'm wondering if leaf blowing has just become a customary expense for businesses without anyone asking about the point of it.

The concept of “security theater” has become well understood (if only partially resisted) over the past two decades in the United States. Finding the right line between proper crucial disease-reduction strategies, and feel-good “hygiene theater,” has been both important, and difficult, during the pandemic crisis.

The reader correctly indicates a new kind of “maintenance theater,” which persists by default—and can be changed by regulations that accelerate the inevitable shift to cleaner, less dangerous machinery.