SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The booming popularity of outdoor kitchens among homeowners in the San Francisco Bay Area has an increasing number of their neighbors coughing and hacking from the smoke, leading air-quality officials to consider tightening rules on wood-burning pizza ovens and smokers. Residents like Noelle Robbins of Alameda are calling complaint lines and public officials to urge limits on backyard grilling and barbecuing. For Robbins, a 21-year resident of her neighborhood, trouble began last spring when a neighbor two doors down set up a meat smoker in his backyard.
Coughing neighbors: Bay Area rethinks outdoor cooking