Mamma Mia!
Historic Big Apple pizza joints could be forced to dish out mounds of dough under a proposed city edict targeting pollutant-spewing coal-and-wood-fired ovens, The Post has learned.
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has drafted new rules that would order eateries using the decades-old baking method to slice carbon emissions by up to 75%. … [emphasis, links added]
The rule could require pizzerias with such ovens installed before May 2016 to buy pricey emission-control devices — with the owner of one Brooklyn joint saying he’s already tossed $20,000 on an air filter system in anticipation of the new mandate.
“Oh yeah, it’s a big expense!” said Paul Giannone, the owner of Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint. “It’s not just the expense of having it installed, it’s the maintenance. I got to pay somebody to do it, to go up there every couple of weeks and hose it down and you know do the maintenance.” …
A city official said that under 100 restaurants total would be impacted.
One pizza restaurateur, who requested anonymity, told The Post that sensitive negotiations are currently taking place with DEP officials on whether to grandfather in or exempt the dozens of coal-and-wood-oven-fired pizza joints from the mandate.
He said politicians and bureaucrats should stop messing with their crust.
“This is an unfunded mandate and it’s going to cost us a fortune not to mention ruining the taste of the pizza, destroying the product,” the restaurateur, who has a coal-fired oven, fumed.
“If you f—k around with the temperature in the oven you change the taste. That pipe, that chimney, it’s that size to create the perfect updraft, keeps the temp perfect, it’s an art as much as a science. You take away the char, the thing that makes the pizza taste great, you kill it,” he claimed.
“And for what? You think that you’re changing the environment with these eight or nine pizza ovens?!” the restaurateur added.
Some crusty customers also told city officials not to tamper with their slices.
“I’m all for responsible environmental practice but tell Al Gore to take one less private jet or something. Give me a break!” said Brooklyn Heights resident Saavi Sharma, 32, a financier who brought her parents and cousin visiting from India for their first slice at Grimaldi’s, referring to the former vice president and climate change activist.
“I’ve been bragging about this pizza to my family for like five years,” Sharma said Sunday. Don’t mess with this!” …
Under the mandate, restaurants with coal-and-wood-fired ovens must hire an engineer or architect to assess the feasibility of installing emission control devices to achieve a 75% reduction in particulate emissions.
If this report concludes that a reduction of 75% or more cannot be achieved, or that no emissions controls can be installed, it must identify any emission controls that could provide a reduction of at least 25% or an explanation for why no emission controls can be installed.
The restaurant will be allowed to apply for a variance or waiver but must provide evidence to prove a hardship.
The new DEP rules comply with Local 38 of 2015 approved by former Mayor Bill de Blasio — who was widely mocked after he was pictured eating a slice with a fork and knife — and the City Council.
DEP officials said the difficulty in drafting practical rules without negatively impacting restaurants — plus the COVID-19 pandemic — delayed action until now.
The department said it consulted with an advisory committee consisting of restaurateurs to come up with the rule.
“The advisory committee and DEP were unable to finalize a rule in that time frame due to the difficulty of crafting a rule to manage technical and cost concerns that are attendant to the installation of emission control devices,” department officials explained. …
The first pizza joints in New York and the US used coal-fired ovens, which were cheaper than wood.
But they take more oxygen to burn, require more space, and are typically built into the foundation of a building.
Stainless steel pizza ovens entered the picture in the 1940s thanks to the emergence of natural gas, and very few new restaurants used coal or wood ovens.
Other city pizzerias using such ovens include Fornino’s in Williamsburg and Motorino, which also has a location in the Brooklyn neighborhood, as well as in the East Village and the Upper West Side.
Lombardi’s, which opened in 1905 and claims to be America’s first pizzeria in America, boasts on its website about its “beautiful, smoky-crusted coal oven-baked pizza.”
John’s of Bleecker Street has been in business for over a century, including since 1929 at its current location, and states on its website that its “hallmarks… are the coal-fired brick ovens that churn out hundreds of crispy pizzas daily.”
A rep at the eatery confirmed that its coal-fired oven was installed before 2016.
Meanwhile, “Mancini’s Wood-Fired Pizza” in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, also may be forced to put in a device to curb fumes. It has an old wood-fired oven, an employee said.
Top Photo by Leonardo Luz
Read full post at NY Post
All this based upon Politics Junk Science and Lies Its to fight back against Big Green Brother over this whole stupid thing
Human excrement, urine and dope smoke up your nose are so much healthier than an old fashioned pizza oven. BTW, I suspect that these pizzerias don’t use raw coal, but charcoal or coke.