LOS ANGELES — Without realizing they were starting a movement in green energy policy, leaders of a small Sonoma Valley city seem to have done just that when they questioned the approval process for a new gas station — eventually halting its development and others in the future.
"We didn't know what we were doing, actually," said Petaluma Councilwoman D'Lynda Fischer, who led the charge last year to prohibit new gas stations in the city of 60,000. "We didn't know we were the first in the world when we banned gas stations."
Since Petaluma's decision, four other cities in the Bay Area have followed suit, and now, leaders in California's most car-centric metropolis are hoping to bring the climate-conscious policy to Southern California.
