from Hacker News

Famous chef wants to open a Bay Area restaurant. A gas stove ban may prevent it

by tafda on 5/12/23, 2:24 AM with 29 comments

• by smt88 on 5/12/23, 3:16 AM

  1. The gas stove ban is for new buildings. He could open his restaurant in any of the thousands of other spaces available in the area. SF is badly under-leased for commercial space anyway.

  2. If this is the worst thing we can find about the ban (a wealthy celebrity chef deciding not to open a chain restaurant in a shopping center) then it has no bearing on my opinion of the ban. We don't complain about bank regulations because they're forced to deny loans to people like this, do we?

• by Kim_Bruning on 5/12/23, 8:18 AM

  I'm somewhat surprised everyone everywhere isn't ripping out natural gas as quickly as they can, like folks are doing in Europe.

  In Europe we've been having this gas issue due to the Ukraine war and associated sanctions over and back. Gas went really expensive. A lot of people were wearing extra sweaters and using extra blankets this winter to save money.

  From this we've learned that being reliant on Things That Run Out is not a good idea at all.

  For all that, it seems like the lesson was only local. I guess people really don't learn lessons vicariously. :-/

• by knewter on 5/12/23, 3:53 PM

  I'm honestly gobsmacked at the hn lovefest for banning natural gas. It's not rational behaviour. it's sociologically fascinating, but yuck.

• by rhaway84773 on 5/12/23, 11:58 AM

  There is no gas stove ban. It’s a ban for gas hookups coming from the utilities.

  You can still buy and use a gas stove. You just have to get a cylinder to drive it. You don’t get to freeload off expensive infrastructure that the city and other residents pay for.

• by sfmike on 5/12/23, 5:46 AM

  No Wok Hei for SF

• by aaron695 on 5/12/23, 5:14 AM

  What I hate about the Woke making gas stoves part of their fascist doctrine over others is I really like induction as a technology, now I have to oppose it.

  All such cooking puts out harmful air particles. Gas is a fraction more. You need good rangehoods and ventilation to solve this problem. Ventilation should be happening for disease control anyway.

  In a world were we showed there are no big plans for big issues, having restaurants being able to serve food in blackouts matter.

  To the article, any good chef will adapt, sadly schadenfreude rarely happens.

  If there's a big event California won't reap what they sow and everyone dies, Texas will help them out. It's more about death by a thousand cuts to everyone around them.

  Wealth that could have been created to solve real problems, including in the poorer states won't happen, ventilation will stay an issue and Bay Area restaurants will keep the hipsters happy for decades to come.

• by midoridensha on 5/12/23, 2:58 AM

  What a whiner. Plenty of pro chefs use and prefer induction heating because it allows finer control and better reproducibility, while greatly reducing indoor air pollution. Sounds like he needs to learn some new methods.