(RepublicanDaily.org) – New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is proposing new rules for coal and wood-fired ovens that will directly impact the city’s pizza industry and pizza lovers are furious. The new rules would require that restaurants and institutions using coal or wood-powered ovens reduce their carbon emissions by 75%. This would require upgrades to around 60 wood-fired pizza restaurants around the city amounting to $10,000 or more each.
Recent footage of conservative artist and commentator Scott LoBaido throwing pizzas towards New York City Hall was widely shared on social media. LoBaido opened and tossed out a number of large boxes of pizza and giving a speech about the “New York pizza party” as a parallel to the historic American Revolution revolt known as the Boston Tea Party. LoBaido shouted about “woke-a** idiots” who are ruining the city and ignoring more important issues such as “the most violent, raging crime rate ever” and an “invasion” of illegal immigrants.
According to DEP, the proposed emissions rules are about cracking down on pollutants and improving the city’s air quality. Wood-fired pizza restaurant owners such as Paul Giannone say the new rules are already costing them big and include the need to buy expensive air filtration systems that require constant and costly maintenance in addition to the sticker price and installation cost. Discussions are reportedly currently taking place about whether existing wood-fired and coal oven pizzerias might gain exemptions through a grandfather clause.
The currently drafted proposal applies to wood-fired and coal-powered ovens that were put in before 2016. According to DEP the rules were already supposed to go into effect in 2020 but the COVID pandemic delayed the plan. There are over 1,700 pizzerias in New York City, but the DEP says less than 100 use wood or coal. New York’s first pizzerias used coal ovens that chefs adapted from using to bake bread to make pizza pies. The vast majority of these pizzerias have since been updated to gas ovens.
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