Mamma Mia!
Historic Big Apple pizza joints may very well 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 Latest York City Department of Environmental Protection has drafted recent rules that will order eateries using the decades-old baking method to slice carbon emissions by as much as 75%.
“All Latest Yorkers should breathe healthy air and wood and coal-fired stoves are amongst the most important contributors of harmful pollutants in neighborhoods with poor air quality,” DEP spokesman Ted Timbers said in an announcement Sunday. “This commonsense rule, developed with restaurant and environmental justice groups, requires an expert review of whether installing emission controls is possible.”
The rule could require pizzerias with such ovens installed prior to May 2016 to purchase pricey emission-control devices — with the owner of 1 Brooklyn joint saying he’s already tossed $20,000 on an air filter system in anticipation of the brand new mandate.
“Oh yeah, it’s an enormous expense!” said Paul Giannone, the owner of Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint. “It’s not only the expense of getting it installed, it’s the upkeep. I got to pay any individual to do it, to go up there every couple of weeks and hose it down and you understand do the upkeep.”
The Latest York City Department of Environmental Protection has drafted recent rules that will order eateries using the decades-old baking method to slice carbon emissions by as much as 75%.Gregory P. Mango
Giannone added that while the air filter is “expensive and it’s an enormous hassle,” it also has some upsides.
“My neighbors are much happier. I had a man coming in for years complaining that the smoke was, you understand, going right into his apartment and I haven’t seen him since I got the scrubber installed.”
Other iconic pizza joints facing the warmth include Lombardi’s in Little Italy, Arturo’s in Soho, John’s of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, Patsy’s in Turtle Bay and the Upper West Side and Grimaldi’s near the Brooklyn Bridge — that pride themselves on having their pies baked in coal-and-wood-fired ovens.
A city official said that under 100 restaurants total could be impacted.
One pizza restaurateur, who requested anonymity, told The Post that sensitive negotiations are currently happening with DEP officials on whether to grandfather in or exempt the handfuls of coal-and-wood-oven-fired pizza joints from the mandate.
He said politicians and bureaucrats should stop messing with their crust.
“That is an unfunded mandate and it’s going to cost us a fortune not to say ruining the taste of the pizza totally destroying the product,” the restaurateur, who has a coal-fired oven, fumed.
The rule could require pizzerias with such ovens installed prior to May 2016 to purchase pricey emission-control devices.Gregory P. Mango
“In case you f—k around with the temperature within the oven you alter the taste. That pipe, that chimney, it’s that size to create the proper updraft, keeps the temp perfect, it’s an art as much as a science. You’re taking away the char, the thing that makes the pizza taste great, you kill it,” he claimed.
“And for what? You actually think that you simply’re changing the environment with these eight or nine pizza ovens?!” the restaurateur added.
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Some crusty customers also told city officials to not tamper with their slice.
“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 his or her first slice at Grimaldi’s, referring to the previous vp 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!”
Giannone of Paulie Gee’s, said that despite assertions on the contrary, the air scrubbers won’t affect the standard of the taste or texture of the pies.
“If someone is attempting to say that putting the scrubber in changes the flavour of the pizza they’re just trying to save lots of themselves $20,000. No, it doesn’t affect what’s happening contained in the oven,” he said.
“No, it hasn’t modified the taste. It hasn’t modified the pizza. It hasn’t modified our product in any respect.”
A city official said that under 100 restaurants total could be impacted.Gregory P. Mango
Under the mandate, restaurants with coal-and-wood-fired ovens must hire an engineer or architect to evaluate the feasibility of putting in emission controls devices to realize a 75% reduction in particulate emissions.
If this report concludes that a discount of 75% or more can’t be achieved, or that no emissions controls will be installed, it must discover any emission controls that would provide a discount of a minimum of 25% or a proof for why no emission controls will be installed.
The restaurant might be allowed to use for a variance or waiver, but must windfall evidence to prove a hardship.
The brand 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 issue in drafting practical rules without negatively impacting restaurants — plus the COVID-19 pandemic — delayed motion until now.
The department said it consulted with an advisory committee consisting of restaurateurs to give you the rule.
“The advisory committee and DEP were unable to finalize a rule in that time-frame resulting from the issue of crafting a rule to administer technical and value concerns which might be attendant to the installation of emission control devices,” department officials explained.
“For instance, costs for controls for existing cook stoves will be difficult to administer because the spaces through which these cook stoves operate are sometimes aging structures that weren’t designed to accommodate emission control devices,” the officials said. “As well as, most of the locations where existing cook stoves are used will not be owned by the operators of the cook stoves, and changes required to put in such devices require obtaining the owner’s permission.”
The restaurant might be allowed to use for a variance or waiver, but must windfall evidence to prove a hardship.Gregory P. Mango
The primary pizza joints in Latest York and the US used coal-fired ovens, which was cheaper than wood.
But they take more oxygen to burn, requiring more room and typically built into the inspiration of a constructing.
Chrome steel pizza ovens entered the image within the Forties because of the emergence of natural gas, and only a few recent restaurants used coal or wood ovens.
Other city pizzeria using such ovens include Fornino’s in Williamsburg and Motorino, which also has a location within the Brooklyn neighborhood, in addition to within 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 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 a whole lot of crispy pizza’s each day.” A rep on the eatery confirmed that its coal-fired oven was installed before 2016.
Meanwhile, “Mancini’s Wood-Fired Pizza” in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, also could also be forced to place in a tool to curb fumes. It has an old wood-fired oven, an worker said.
One young customer, 8-year-old Alexander Dumas, loved his first wood-fired pizza Sunday at Fornino’s.
“That is the second best pizza I’ve ever had! I’ve had Domino’s and Papa Johns before and this is best. I feel this is nice like this,” said Dumas, oblivious to the controversy.