Seven years ago, an air quality ordinance passed in New York City that would eventually require some pizza shops to install small air filters, the same type that shops in Italy have been using for decades.
Food professionals and pizza historians both say that it's not a big deal, but as we've seen this month — through the Bud Light controversies and right-wing declarations that "conservative coded" restaurants like Chick-fil-A and Cracker Barrel are secretly "woke" — it seems like some right-wing public figures are still looking for reasons to get mad.
So now, they are blaming climate activists and "pink-haired liberals" for ruining New York-style pizza, a statement that is not based in fact. Dave Portnoy is the founder of Barstool Sports — and is known for both his pizza reviews and, as New York Magazine has catalogued, his jokes about rape, using racial slurs in his content and pervasive accusations of sexual misconduct.
After finding out that the air-quality rule, which soon takes effect and requires a handful of pizzerias to reduce exhaust fumes that could harm neighbors, he posted a video on Twitter of him ranting.
"Some f**king little liberal arts, Ivy-League, pink-haired, crazy liberal who's never worked one day in the real world is trying to get rid of coal oven pizzerias in New York City," he said.
As Wilfred Chan of The Guardian pointed out, a lot of the confusion about the ordinance seems to stem from a New York Post article that published over the weekend; it is riddled with inaccuracies and relies on the testimony of an unnamed restaurant owner who reportedly said that the filters would result in "totally destroying the product."
Scott Weiner, a leading New York City pizza expert and historian, told The Guardian that "this is not legislation that will corrode the New York pizza scene … Pizzerias have mostly already adapted, and most pizzerias that need them have already installed them, and nobody has noticed. This is something that is not going to make or break a pizzeria."
However, some conservatives aren't letting facts stand in the way of them making a complete spectacle of themselves, like in the case of pro-Trump activist Scott LoBaido who recorded a video of himself throwing cheese pizzas over the gate at New York City Hall while angrily monologuing.
"Our teachers and first responder heroes who were fired [are] still not compensated because they didn't take the Fauci injection," he said. "Our city schools produce the dumbest kids and the woke-ass punks who run New York Sh**y are afraid of pizza? The world used to respect New Yorkers as tough, thick-skinned and gritty. Now, we have become pussified."
He continued, shouting: "Well, this is the New York Pizza Party! Give us pizza or give us death!"
From Colorado, Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert wrote on Twitter, again without basis, that "the majority of NYC's world-famous pizza joints utilize decades-old brick ovens, and will be directly affected by this." Elon Musk, similarly, decided to weigh in on Twitter: "This is utter bs. It won't make a difference to climate change."
In response to LoBaido's antics, New York City Mayor Eric Adams — who is a vegan — took a moderate tone and said that he needed to "bring vegan pie to me so we can sit down and I want to hear his side of this." That extended to his public statement he gave Monday, in which he said: "We don't want to hurt businesses in the city and we don't want to hurt the environment. So let's see if we can find a way to get the resolutions we're looking for."
Currently, New York City restaurants and the city's environmental agency are in discussion about how the city could do more to subsidize the cost of the units, which typically come in between $10,000 and $20,000 including installation.
