New York City Declares War Against Pizza

UPDATE: I wrote this lightly apocalyptic little piece in a spirit of fun, but a number of people have taken umbrage at it, and pointed to several … let’s say overstatements, and wrote supporting the City’s changes. I’ve appended a clarification below.

In its latest attack on happiness, New York City is warping the rules for pizzerias. Those under attack include Lombardi’s in Little Italy, Arturo’s in Soho, John’s of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, Roberta’s in Bushwick, Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint, Patsy’s in Turtle Bay and the Upper West Side, and Grimaldi’s near the Brooklyn Bridge.

They include pizzas cooked to the UNESCO-recognized Neapolitan pizza standards. 

As reported here, pizzerias using coal and wood-fired ovens will have to reduce carbon emissions by 75 percent. Each of these places, and others, will have to spend a boatload of money to replace ovens and/or adjust their exhaust systems — something that may be physically impossible in their current neighborhood locations. Otherwise, no more pizzas.

As if that weren’t enough, if they do comply, the pizzas won’t taste as good.

“If you $%#@$% 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.”

Farewell coal fired pizzas like these beauties,

and wood fired pizzas like this Neapolitan masterpiece.

But great pizza, wood-fired or coal fired, will be a thing of the past in New York City. The killjoys have struck again. And what’s the relative environmental impact of all those pizza ovens vs. the particulate emissions from a single millionaire’s private jet taking off at JFK or La Guardia for a conference at Davos, let alone the greenhouse impact?

Pizzerias are just the start. The implications for barbecue places are terrifying. Life is hard enough for wood-fired barbecue in New York City now, with one place required to install a 15-story smoke exhaust pipe. (It closed.) Are they going to ban wood-cooked barbecue in New York City, require that the pork, brisket, and ribs be cooked with gas (whose doom is on its horizon, too) or electricity? Is even your Weber grill safe?

A ban on wood is a ban on greatness. In the last couple of years, New York City lost nearly half a million residents. It’s up to those who remain to fight City Hall. Pizza lovers of New York, arise!

CLARIFICATION:

Apologists for the City point out that this is not a brand-new requirement.  Rather, it is simply a betrayal of those pizza places, like John’s and Paulie’s, that had been grandfathered in under the earlier law, which was passed in 2015 or 2016, that is, before the ravages of COVID, inflation, and labor shortages hit the restaurant industry, nd when the pizza places are much less able to meet new requirements.  They will now have to spend money, at minimum hiring architects and so forth to establish that they cannot feasibly comply.  If compliance isn’t reasonably possible, they can ask for a waiver.  Perhaps they may get one, and perhaps the City will keep faith for a few years.  

It has been pointed out that this will affect only the small number of places. I don’t see why they bothered really, or couldn’t find another way too equal the impact without breaking their trust.

There is, of course, a dispute over how burdensome the costs will be.  As usual, people who won’t have to pay argue that those who will can afford it.  Those who will have to spend money would rather not.

I don’t know much about cooking pizzas although, as with art and anatomy, I know what I like. I do know about barbecue. My sympathies are ever with small businesses and consumers who are ill-situated to bear the cost of new regulations. And I think that when you make a deal, you stick to it.

***

And while you’re at it, click “follow” on our front page to receive blog posts in your email box.  Or bookmark us and check in from time to time.  If you’re planning a trip, you can “Search” the name of the destination city, state, or country for good restaurants (in Europe, often close to sites, like the Louvre or the Van Gogh Museum, that you’ll want to visit in any event).  Comments, questions, and suggestions of places to eat or stories to cover are very welcome.  And check our Instagram and Twitter pages, johntannerbbq.