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Parents rage against the Ice Cream Vendor.

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Ripclawe

Banned
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/dining/19soft.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

When Parents Scream Against Ice Cream By HELENE STAPINSKI


IT’S a spectacular day at Harmony Playground in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, with children swinging and running through sprinklers. An “icy man” with his pushcart of fruit ices stands near the jungle gym, as parents look toward the gated entrance. A second ices vendor enters, also setting up shop inside the playground’s cast-iron fence.

Vicki Sell, mother of 3-year-old Katherine, tenses when the vendor starts ringing his little bell, over and over, hoping her daughter doesn’t have the typical Pavlovian response.

Ever since Katherine had an inconsolable meltdown about not being able to have a treat, Ms. Sell has been trying to have unlicensed vendors ousted from the park. She has repeatedly called the city’s 311 complaint hot line, joining parents nationwide who can’t stand the icy man or his motorized big brother, the ice cream man.

“I fall into the camp of parents who are irate,” Ms. Sell said. She has equal disdain for Mister Softee and the ice cream pop vendor outside the park, but since they are licensed, there is not much she can do about them.

“I feel kind of bad about having developed this attitude,” she said. “I want Katherine to have the full childhood experience and all. But it’s really predatory for them — two of them — to be right inside the playground like this.”

Ms. Sell says she is not obsessed with health and nutrition. She — and others — feel they have been pushed to the brink by that little bell. Across message boards and playgrounds, soccer fields and day camp exits, parents have been raging. In a greener, more health-conscious, unsafe world, the ice cream man has lost some of his mojo.

In Chicago last fall, the City Council banned ice cream trucks from the 18th Ward after residents complained about unclean vendors, noise and, more troubling, possible drug sales inside some of the trucks.

In Clark County, Nev., home to loud and glitzy Las Vegas, an ordinance was voted in this year to prohibit the trucks from jingling after 8 p.m. in summer.

“I ran into some people who wanted to ban him completely,” said Chris Giunchigliani, a county commissioner. “But I didn’t think that was fair.”

In May, New York City principals received letters from the advocacy group Asthma Free School Zone, urging them to keep trucks from their buildings. “Sometimes you’ll see a child in a stroller parked right next to the exhaust pipe of the truck,” said Lori Bukiewicz, schools coordinator for the organization, which has been trying to persuade Mister Softee to use biodiesel fuels in generators for their freezers and to get city officials to pass legislation controlling the trucks’ emissions. For the last two years, it has been illegal for ice cream trucks in the city to play their jingles while stopped for business.

Parents in most places improvise solutions — running the other way when they hear the jingle or telling their children that they left their wallets at home.

Rachael Reiley of Cambridge, Mass., called the ice cream truck “the music truck,” convincing her 3-year-old son that it was playing “The Entertainer” simply to entertain. But he soon got wise when he saw the other children walking away from the truck, their faces smeared with chocolate and vanilla, their hands filled with ice cream cones.

Ms. Reiley didn’t mind buying him a treat, occasionally. But the truck — called Here’s Frosty — parks outside her door on most sunny days around 4:30 p.m. and wakes her son from his nap. “Then he’s up, plastered against the window, yelling: ‘Music truck! Music truck!’ ” Ms. Reiley said. “Sometimes he grabs his little bank and says, ‘I have money.’ ”

As a new mother, she said, people coach you on potty training and what to feed your child. “But the ice cream truck, nobody ever mentions that,” she said.

In northeastern Wisconsin, on the social networking site Moms Like Me, a group of mothers shared their ice cream angst in June. “I was amazed at the number of moms who said they hated it,” said Laura Kaste, the site manager. For some, the cost was a problem. Another mother was angry that the ice cream man would always arrive right before dinner. Joel Semanko, who owns an ice cream vendor business, Cool Cycles, in Tacoma, Wash., said the dignified, responsible days of the ice cream man cruising into a neighborhood at dusk began to fade in the 1970s.

“There used to be this image that was wholesome and cool,” Mr. Semanko said. But these days, in Tacoma, there is a guy in an old mail van with no shirt on, smoking a cigarette, he said. “I heard one kid complain that the guy actually burped on him. That’s creepy to people.”

Mr. Semanko said his No. 1 reason for starting up Cool Cycles was to change the image of the industry. His franchisees drive motorcycles with side cars filled with ice cream bars. They wear white suits, black bow ties and white helmets or hats. They typically charge $1.35 a bar, since their fuel costs are low, and most important, Mr. Semanko said, they drive off as soon as their line of customers is gone.

That approach is pleasingly old school to Crispin Heidel-Habluetzel, a Portland, Ore., mother of two.

“When we were kids you would either get the ice cream or not and then he would just go away,” she said. “But they just sit there now, and it’s like an hour of ‘Can I have ice cream? Can I have ice cream?’ It’s really the vulturelike behavior that bothers me.”

Jim Conway, a vice president for Mister Softee, said the company encouraged vendors to be sensitive to customers’ complaints. But parents, he said, are different from when he was young. Those who dislike the ice cream man, he said, tend to be “New Age parents whose kids can’t seem to do anything without them.”

But the complaints are not just coming from effete organic-food zealots with too much time on their hands. The 18th Ward in Chicago, which banned ice cream vendors, is made up of working-class African-American families.

Ms. Reiley is a stay-at-home mother. Ms. Heidel-Habluetzel is a real-estate agent who is an active volunteer at her children’s school. And Ms. Sell owns and runs a restaurant in Brooklyn with her husband, a chef. “I’m not a health freak by any means,” Ms. Sell said. “But I notice what happens to my daughter when she eats these sugar-filled things with all these additives.”

More refined, and expensive, alternatives have popped up. There is the Parfait organic ice cream truck in Seattle, Coolhaus handmade ice cream sandwiches in Los Angeles and Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream in New York.

According to Mister Softee, its typical small vanilla cone is 170 to 190 calories, not exactly a diet buster. It passes the legal definition of ice cream, which cannot be said of soft serve from Dairy Queen and McDonald’s, which sells “ice milk.” Mister Softee ingredients include milk, cream, cane sugar, corn syrup, nonfat milk, whey, mono- and diglycerides, cellulose gum , as well as natural and artificial flavorings.

Though most ice cream vendors are defensive about their prepackaged products, Hilary Guishard of Brooklyn, known as Doc, understands the concern of worried parents. Mr. Guishard, who has owned and driven Mister Softee trucks for 32 years, possesses the wisdom of a man who has cruised the mean streets for a very long time. “I empathize with moms when it come to health issues,” Mr. Guishard said. Some Mister Softee franchisees can get healthier products, like fat-free ice cream, if customers ask them, he said.

“But moms have a choice,” he said. “We should be mature enough to tell our kids, ‘No.’ ”

Wanting the trucks to go away “is not a valid issue,” he said, adding, “It’s like a mother being angry at a store being at a particular corner.” Besides, the ice cream man isn’t forever.

“It’s summer,” he said, sighing. “It’s only four months.”
 
Inconsolable? Please. When I was inconsolable I was disciplined until I was. Parents these days are so soft and pathetic raising these weaker versions of themselves.
 
“Sometimes you’ll see a child in a stroller parked right next to the exhaust pipe of the truck,”

Uhh, that is some dumbass parent's fault not the delicious ice cream selling man's fault. Parent's need to learn responsibility or not have kids.
 

Sp3eD

0G M3mbeR
Mik2121 said:
I see what you did there :D

(Because I guess you are talking about the PBJ thread?)

I took it as somebody being allergic to peanuts and accidentally get some in a non peanut cone.
 

Core407

Banned
evilpigking said:
“Sometimes you’ll see a child in a stroller parked right next to the exhaust pipe of the truck,”

Uhh, that is some dumbass parent's fault not the delicious ice cream selling man's fault. Parent's need to learn responsibility or not have kids.

:lol Does the guy who write that shit even think?
 

bjork

Member
I'm all for the banning of music while stopped. The assface in the pedo van that sells ice cream out here has that "sailing, sailing" song on his, but it's louder than any concert PA in the history of earth, and I think he just stops to talk to people. He's parked for like 20 minutes at a time, with that incessant shit blaring all over the neighborhood.

But yeah. The parents need to quit being wimpy.
 

oxrock

Gravity is a myth, the Earth SUCKS!
Ice cream vendors go to where their customers are, who gives a shit? It's bullshit to blame the vendor for your inability to control your child.
 

RagnarokX

Member
Man, what complainers. It could be much much worse...
fw7mgl.jpg
 

Meier

Member
These freaks are acting like they haven't always driven through neighborhoods right before dinner. This is not some new phenomenon. I hate young parents. It's like they completely lost all memory of their childhood or something.
 
Don't be a cheap fuck, buy your kid an ice cream cone every once in a while. As long as you aren't feeding them ice cream for every meal they'll be fine. And LOL at her outrage of them being near a playground. Where the fuck are they supposed to be? I doubt they'd do as good business if they parked outside of a hair salon all day.
 

bjork

Member
rainking187 said:
Don't be a cheap fuck, buy your kid an ice cream cone every once in a while. As long as you aren't feeding them ice cream for every meal they'll be fine. And LOL at her outrage of them being near a playground. Where the fuck are they supposed to be? I doubt they'd do as good business if they parked outside of a hair salon all day.

I dunno dude, you ever see the commercial where all those women chase down the 100-calorie Oreo truck and tip that shit over to steal all the cookies? An ice cream man might end up getting killed like Piggy in Lord of the Flies.
 

Doytch

Member
“There used to be this image that was wholesome and cool,” Mr. Semanko said. But these days, in Tacoma, there is a guy in an old mail van with no shirt on, smoking a cigarette, he said. “I heard one kid complain that the guy actually burped on him. That’s creepy to people.”

Ya gotta have da ICE
 

Ponn

Banned
Videogames are too violent and shouldn't be played, PBJ sandwiches are banned, Only a few saturday morning cartoons anymore on Fox or CW and they suck, now no ice cream trucks.

You know, I really don't blame kids for joining gangs, doing drugs and sending naked pictures of each other over cell phones now, there isn't anything else for them to do.

yes, i'm being sarcastic. Kind of
 
When I was a kid, my mum hardly EVER let me get anything when the ice cream man came by. It sucked, but I fucking dealt with it.

As said above, if a kid is "inconsoleable" just because they can't have an ice cream, and continue to pester their parents about it afterward, then it's the parents fault for not disciplining their child properly, and being unable to say no to them.

When I have a kid, if they cry simply because I tell them they can't have an ice cream, I'll give them a real reason to cry.
 

Cheshire

Member
Verboten said:
Inconsolable? Please. When I was inconsolable I was disciplined until I was. Parents these days are so soft and pathetic raising these weaker versions of themselves.

True story. I got the old I'm going to count to 3. And unlike most parents that did the 2 1/2, 2 2/3 my mum only dealt in whole numbers.

We always had the ice cream truck go by our house and we'd look at mum and she'd either give caeser's thumbs up or thumbs down. If it was thumbs down we just dealt with it.
 
Ever think of tricking out an ice cream truck and having it play a jingle to attract the kids today? Something like: dah-dah da-duuum da-duuum da-duuuuummmmmm... dah-dah-dah-da-dah-da-duummm dah dumm dummmm....
 
some of these parents need to learn not just how to say no, but to get their kids to understand that no means 'no' and not 'ask me again in a few seconds'.
 

Cheerilee

Member
In northeastern Wisconsin, on the social networking site Moms Like Me, a group of mothers shared their ice cream angst in June. “I was amazed at the number of moms who said they hated it,” said Laura Kaste, the site manager.
Does hate count for anything? Would she be amazed by the number of people who hate her now?
 

Tarazet

Member
Really? Ice cream trucks squat outside for an hour at a time, every day? That's pretty excessive. I hear them come into the neighborhood, go back out and that's it.

What's this from?

Twisted Metal.
 

jax (old)

Banned
Drkirby said:
Damn people, we need more Ice Cream men, not less :/

this.


I used to live in a town with an icecream truck with random routes... and even in my 20s I was excited when it'd come around. Seriously, people are fucked!
 
I remember when my ice cream truck driver of my childhood got arrested for dealing out of his truck, dude always had good prices for ice cream though.:lol :lol
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
“But moms have a choice,” he said. “We should be mature enough to tell our kids, ‘No.’ ”

I was hoping something like this would be said.

FFS parents, grow some fucking balls.
 
Jim Conway, a vice president for Mister Softee, said...those who dislike the ice cream man...tend to be “New Age parents whose kids can’t seem to do anything without them.”

Waaah. Poor cranky baby. Someone buy him a cone.
 

Ela Hadrun

Probably plays more games than you
Reporter finds ~a dozen insane parents, check. Gets an upper management member of the industry whose business model is being criticized to claim it's a parenting trend, check. Pretend that a ban on ice cream trucks in a Chicago ward WHERE THEY WERE BEING USED TO RUN DRUGS has anything to do with this story, oh, we'll call that icing, she gets a little bonus for that one.
 
if the old "I'll give you something to cry about" doesn't work, you have failed as a parent. Your kids should be at least a little scared and intimidated of you.
 
This world is looking very alien to me everyday with news stories like this. Ice cream trucks were always around, now they are very rarely around, if at all. So sad.
 
Ninja Scooter said:
if the old "I'll give you something to cry about" doesn't work, you have failed as a parent. Your kids should be at least a little scared and intimidated of you.
This. My mom said that any time she didn't want to hear it, and it worked like a charm.
 

Holepunch

Member
I hope this has the opposite effect. People buying ice cream from these carts to keep them in business JUST to piss off parents who don't how to raise a child.

I know that every generation thinks the next generation is the "worst generation ever" but goddamn if you don't know how to tell a kid they can't have ice cream at every opportunity. I think I got ice cream from a van or cart maybe once. That was only when visiting relatives on an extremely hot day and they themselves were begging for ice cream.
 
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