Below The Beltway

The New York Times profiles the latest bane of Suburbia:

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.

Not surprisingly, the industry isn’t taking this lying down:

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.”

But this is America, we’re not allowed to have fun anymore.