Yonkers, NY Outdoor Cooking: Smoker Rules (2026)

O. No. 8-2005, covers open-flame cooking wherever it happens on public property rather than private land. Section 103-82 reaches "any person, firm or entity, or their agents or employees" who make, kindle or use a fire, barbecue, grill, portable stove, or burning charcoal, wood or any other flammable material in or on a City street, sidewalk or other public property. That sweeps in smokers and wood or charcoal cookers just as it does gas grills and open campfires; the statute doesn't distinguish by fuel type, only by location and the absence of a permit.

The single carve-out is an event permit obtained in advance from the City of Yonkers, such as for a block party, which lets organizers set up cooking equipment on a closed street. Without that permit, any open-flame or portable cooking setup on a public street, sidewalk or other public property is prohibited outright, regardless of whether it sits on a residential block or a commercial strip. The section works alongside the Fire Code's building-specific rule at § 59-41H, which separately targets barbecue apparatus on private building terraces, fire escapes, halls and cellars; together the two provisions leave essentially no open-flame cooking location in the city unregulated.