Walking along the street I saw this shocking thing. A sign where people were protesting something. Pretty unthinkable in Taiwan. Although "no more wood smoke" took me awhile to figure out what exactly it meant.
The restaurant under the sign is a pizza place called So Free. It's actually super popular with the students of the nearby university. It's "famous" for it's apple pie pizza. Which yes sounds horrible (although Taiwanese can't seem to grasp why the thought of an apple pie pizza is creepy), is not completely terrible, but nothing I would ever eat again.
The problem seems to be that it uses wood to fuel it's brick oven. While the smell doesn't go far, it is pretty strong right next to the shop and i'm guessing must be pretty bad if you live above it. It is very cool to see that the people who live in this building are trying any way they can to express their unhappiness. While I may or may not agree with what they want, I commend them for putting up this sign.
I say "may not agree" because if this restaurant is forced to move away, than it would be taking away what makes Taipei what it is. Taipei is a city that smells pretty darn horrible. Each restaurant, market, chinese medicine clinic, tiny temples and in the city one room factories, give off some pretty repugnant smells. And for the most part everybody lives above some sort of place that gives off a nasty smell, making you think twice when opening up your windows. So it seems like if this place had to move, than it would open the flood gates for every building in Taipei to kick out every shop/temple/clinic/factory for make some sort of nasty smell.
On the other hand I'm a bit shocked that they haven't gotten this place evicted. There is another area a few blocks away that used to have tons of restaurants, that eventually forced all those restaurants to move out of the area (my favorite pizza place was one of them). Granted the residents were complaining about all the noise, not the smell. So i guess if this building wants to win their case, they'll have to start complaining about the noise.
