Since You Asked: Who should dispose of leaves in Yuba City?

Q: Whose responsibility is it to dispose of the leaves in Yuba City? I don't have a problem as a homeowner getting them into the gutter for pickup. Just what is the city's responsibility?

A: The responsibility for leaf disposal rests with the property owner, according to George Musallam, Yuba City public works director.

Yuba City has never had a program for removing leaves from city streets, Musallam said.

Some residents have said they noticed sometimes city work crews have carted off leaves piled in front of homes and other times those same crews have simply left the piles where they are.

Musallam said crews could have occasionally scooped up leaves if they were piled into the streets where they shouldn't be, for instance, but said that is not generally the way the system is supposed to work.

"People are not supposed to blow material into the streets, so there probably have been times when we cleaned that up," Musallam explained. "But, generally, no, we have no program for that."

City officials were also concerned that publicity acknowledging work crews have occasionally helped out with the leaves could lead to residents to begin dumping piles into the streets, believing — falsely — that the city will eventually pick them up.

It's something that property owners may simply have to get used to because it is also probably safe to say that after reading this, city leaders are likely to put the kibosh on all future leaf-gathering citywide.

Sorry if we ruined it for everyone.

FOLLOW-UP: We received a spike in reader responses to our Jan. 23 column regarding the famous barbecue sauce once served at Hal's Grubstake in Yuba City.

The former owners of the defunct restaurant have still had no luck selling the recipe for the much-loved sauce, former owner Jim Harrison said Saturday.

However, many locals have noted there are some places carrying a sauce that is considered to be a very close approximation of Hal's sauce.

"I've had a lot of people tell me it's dead-on, tastewise," said Live Oak's Mark Breeding, owner and head chef of Farmboy's Barbecue.

Breeding, 52, is a veteran prune farmer who took his passionate cooking hobby public last year when he began producing his own brand of barbecue sauces.

Breeding said he wanted a sauce that reminded him of Hal's Grubstake and, when he first began to market his original sauce, he even advertised that sentiment on his bottles.

However, legal issues caused him to remove the sticker and now he is very careful to note that his sauce is his own original recipe.

"It took me about nine months of experimenting, but we all missed Hal's sauce so much, we wanted something that reminded us of it," Breeding explained.

Farmboy's Barbecue sauce is sold in several grocery stores and small markets in the Yuba-Sutter area.

Since You Asked is published on Mondays. Send questions to reporter Rob Parsons at the Appeal-Democrat, 1530 Ellis Lake Drive, Marysville, CA 95901, email him at rparsons@appealdemocrat or call 749-4785.