NYC considers banning pizza ovens. Fuggedaboutit!

Proposed Environmental Regulations Threaten NYC’s Historic Pizza Restaurants

Exciting and flavorful, New York City’s iconic pizza may soon face a major change. Proposed environmental regulations could spell the end for wood- and coal-fired ovens in many of the city’s beloved pizzerias.

“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,” Ted Timbers, spokesman for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, said on Sunday. “This common-sense rule, developed with restaurant and environmental justice groups, requires a professional review of whether installing emission controls is feasible.”

If implemented, this rule would force pizza owners who use coal- or wood-fired ovens installed before May 2016 to purchase expensive devices that control emissions. According to the New York Post, restaurants would need to pizza ovens. Fuggedaboutit!”>cut pizza oven emissions by a staggering 75 percent.

Complying with the regulation would also require restaurant owners to pay for an official examination of their kitchens to determine how to reduce pollution. Those who cannot make it work or afford the necessary devices would need to prove hardship to receive an exemption from the city government.

However, some pizza restaurant owners are concerned that these changes would destroy their product and come at a significant cost. One anonymous restaurateur told the Post, “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?!” he added.

This proposal comes on the heels of New York becoming the first state to ban natural gas connections in new buildings. Starting in 2026, new buildings with seven or fewer stories will be required to use induction and electric devices, with larger buildings making the transition in 2029.

While the city focuses on environmental bans, concerns about rising crime persist. Violent crime in the subway has increased compared to 2020, with 132 felony assaults in the first quarter of 2023. Last year, a black nationalist gunned down 13 people in a Brooklyn subway station.