By: Donny Simcha Guttman

In recent days, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) released new regulations that pizzerias that use traditional coal-wood fire stoves that were installed before May 2016 will be required to cut their emissions by up to 75%. To do this, pizzerias will need to buy expensive electric stoves to fulfill the regulation quota goal.

City officials claim that only under 100 businesses will be affected by the new regulations. DEP spokesman Ted Timbers remarked that, “All New Yorkers deserve to breathe healthy air and wood and coal-fired stoves are among the largest contributors of harmful pollutants in neighborhoods with poor air quality. This common-sense rule, developed with restaurant and environmental justice groups, requires a professional review of whether installing emission controls is feasible.” However, not all city officials and politicians are supportive of the new regulations. Joe Borelli, the City Council minority leader responded, “We will save the planet by putting 9 or 10 fantastic #NYC pizzerias out of business! Gunna really change things you guys!.”

Ari Kagan, a Republican councilman who switched in recent years from a Democrat remarked that, “Socialist Democrats believe Totonno’s pizza in Coney Island is a bigger threat to public safety than their defund NYPD and pro-criminal policies. We will stop them and this insanity.” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, seizing on the opportunity for Nassau Country tweeted that “You don’t mess with a New Yorker’s pizza or bagels. Period. Here in Nassau your local pizza place will continue to be able to make  your pie the same way they have been for decades. We have some of the best pizza in the world, and it’s going to stay that way!” Even Tesla entrepreneur, Elon Musk, a global warming advocate tweeted, “This is utter bs. It won’t make a difference to climate change.”

Restaurant owners, who will be required to make the changes have also expressed outrage at the new rule. An anonymous pizza restaurateur remarked that, “This is an unfunded mandate and it’s going to cost us a fortune not to mention ruining the taste of the pizza totally destroying the product. 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. And for what? You really think that you’re changing the environment with these eight or nine pizza ovens?!”

The DEP claims that this rule has been in the works for a few years, but implementation was delayed due to the pandemic. Department officials have in addition said that, “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. For example, costs for controls for existing cook stoves can be difficult to manage as the spaces in which these cook stoves operate are often aging structures that were not designed to accommodate emission control devices. “