‘They just want to control’

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was in the Big Apple Thursday and torched the city’s proposed crackdown on coal-and-wood-fired pizza shops during a visit to a popular pizzeria that uses that baking method.

The Republican presidential hopeful stopped by Grimaldi’s in Manhattan for a segment on “Jesse Watters Primetime” and then chatted with the host over a couple slices about the draft city rule aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

“They just want to control,” DeSantis told host Jesse Watters of Democratic-led cities as they enjoyed their pizza that was baked in Grimaldi’s coal-fired oven.

“You have an itch on the left, they want to control behavior. We saw the same thing with COVID. A lot of that wasn’t about your health, it’s that they wanted to control your behavior. They just don’t want people to be happy and make their own decisions.”

The Grimaldi’s owner, identified only as Anthony, held up a piece of coal as he showed off his oven to DeSantis.

“This is the culprit. This guy,” he said. “This is a hundred percent American, US coal from Pennsylvania, the best, cleanest burning coal there ever is.”

“I can tell you in Florida, when they went after the gas stoves, we just made gas stoves tax free in Florida, no sales tax,” DeSantis responded. “We will do something similar for coal fired ovens, so if we need New York City pizza to come to Florida, we’re going to roll out the red carpet for you guys.”

After his visited Grimaldi’s, the DeSantis campaign released new pizza-themed merchandise that read “Biden one term. Everybody knows the rules,” in reference to Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy’s catchphrase while doing his hit pizza reviews, the Daily Caller reported.

The proposal, drafted by the city Department of Environmental Protection, would mandate eateries using the decades-old baking method to slice carbon emissions by up to 75%. 

Pizzerias with such ovens installed prior to May 2016 would be forced to buy pricey emission-control devices that can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

A city official told The Post that under 100 restaurants total would be impacted.