In an attempt to revitalize New Haven’s flagging economy, Surprisingly Still Mayor Toni Harp enacted an Executive Order demanding all New Haven restaurants must become Poke places, despite protest from local business and consumers.

New Haven, which currently held the record of highest density of pizza-and-Italian-restaurants-per-person (at 1 restaurant for every 1 human), must quickly shift gears in order to capitalize on the Poke craze crossing the nation due to our highly porous borders.

Fun Fact: Each birth in New Haven results in a new Italian restaurant

“This is a difficult, but not impossible task,” remarked Frank Pepe’s owner Frank Pepe the Sixth. “We were already putting clams on pizza and nobody even tried to stop us. Fuck it, we’re a poke restaurant now. Eat shit, Sally’s.”

Sally’s owner Sally Consiglio V retorted, “Oh, Pepe’s thinks they’re the only pizza place which can just dump random seafood found onto pizza? We were a poke restaurant last week.”

“Uh, this is poke, right?”

Modern Apoke (formerly Modern Apizza), owned by Jimmy Modern, has had a more difficult time adjusting. “Up until now, we’ve just prided ourselves on making actually good pizza instead of being a novelty pie.”

(Jimmy) Modern continued, “Unfortunately, Toni’s desperate ploy to maintain some semblance of leadership has resulted in this insane vision. And I gotta say… I love it. This Poke crazy will definitely last forever, unlike the Froyo craze!”

The shift has been challenging for a number of other restaurants. New Haven’s legendary French restaurant, Union League, has found it particularly problematic.

“Euh yes, of course, ze must comply wiz ze rulez,” said owner Frenchie Union, despite having been born and raised in New Haven. “But et iz deefeecult, tawrturing ze ducks into poke bowlz.”

Poke, which is a Hawaiian dish where basically like, you know how sushi is awesome? Well just pour all that shit in a bowl and dump some soy sauce and uh, is umami a flavor? Hell yeah throw that in there, too.

Me explaining how poke works.

Toni Harp, Mayor for Now, remarked, “Sure, it was nice that 100% of new restaurants opening in New Haven were poke, but can’t we do better? We must do better. We have to stand up to Trump however we can, and if that means that every restaurant in New Haven has to be a poke place, I am willing to make that ridiculous political choice.”

True to her word, Harp had Alderman Definitely Not Harp In A Moustache write up the legislation, which the rest of the Alders summarily ignored because it had nothing to do with UNITE Here.

Poke’s Law passed, 1-0.

Local homeowners, fresh off swallowing an 11% tax increase to New Haven to build 314 new boutique schools in Stratford, were outraged.

They protested by attending this local comedy show.

“Are you kidding me with this? I just discovered Rob’s Crab Shack and now it’s another fucking poke place? What if I don’t feel like eating an entire bowl of rice and raw fish for 15 bucks?” hollered local taxpayer Amanda Resident.

Fellow resident Maurice Taxpayer added, “Sure, I can eat poke three, maybe even four days a week. But c’mon. Sometimes I just want to eat buffalo chicken pizza even though it’s clearly an affront to God.”

“You put WHAT on pizza?”

Unfortunately, both of these outraged statements were made via the comment section of the New Haven Independent, so the only person who saw them was local Troll Legend Grogg the Fifth.

Grogg added via Caps Lock, “JUDAS ISCARIOT THIS IS THE SEVENTH WAVE OF GENTRIFICATION I TRIED TO WARN YOU BUT NOW WE’LL ALL BE TURNED INTO FIX GEAR BICYCLES,” before he was turned into a fixed gear bicycle.

He died as he lived: Furious at bicycles.

Is it legal? We asked someone who claimed to be a lawyer screaming on Church Street, and he assured us, “you motherfuckers and your fuckin poke places man I just need a fuckin JOB.”

Back on the WTNH Comments Section, commenters were quick to jump in with their own opinions:

“Once again, DANNEL Malloy has managed to RAISE TAXES and LIE to us taxpayers about a budget surplus. Where’s my 50 bucks, Dannel? WHERE IS MY FIFTY BUCKS DANNEL. AND WHY IS OBAMA LETTING IN ALL THESE IMMIGANTS.”

WTNH Commenters, probably

Presumed Mayoral candidate Justin Elicker was not available to comment due to the fact that he could not stop laughing.

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