You need a good operations team with the authority and willingness to say "no" with overrides coming only from senior management, the authority to say "yes" for the obvious stuff, and a direct line to senior management for grey areas they're not comfortable making a call on by themselves.
The operations team will spend a few months saying "no" a lot and justifying their decisions to management. Eventually it will slow to a trickle except for a few really stupid people who lack reading comprehension and any sense of pattern detection. Management will eventually get tired of it and forbid the stupid ones from making hot-fix requests.
The operations team will spend a few months saying "no" a lot and justifying their decisions to management. Eventually it will slow to a trickle except for a few really stupid people who lack reading comprehension and any sense of pattern detection. Management will eventually get tired of it and forbid the stupid ones from making hot-fix requests.