Screaming for ice cream prohibited

In some areas around Toronto, municipal politicians have prohibited ice cream trucks from working in residential neighbourhoods

David Menzies - October 3, 2005

Todorka Dimitrova doesn't exactly fit the profile of a fugitive. But the 37-year-old mother, who moved to Canada from her native Bulgaria six years ago to pursue a better life, is considered an outlaw in some parts of Brampton, Ont.

On a humid Saturday afternoon near the end of summer, this wanted woman is glancing almost obsessively into the rear-view mirror of her Mister Twister truck. She's not watching for the adoring tykes that pour out of their homes in this Toronto suburb, craving a soft cone or banana boat. No, she's on the lookout for one of the pickup trucks belonging to the City of Brampton bylaw enforcement officers, who would slap her with a $380 ticket if they knew she was out making the kids' summer a little cooler and sweeter.

"If they see you in Brampton, they'll even tow you away," says Amo Blazys, the increasingly exasperated owner of Mister Twister Inc. His drivers have received more than $10,000 in fines this summer alone. "You know, we've got drugs, guns, prostitutes and crackheads on the streets . . . you'd think they would have better things to do."

Zolton Zebesi, of Brampton-based Cool Treats, says his drivers are treated like "terrorists" by over-zealous bylaw officers, who have hit his drivers with more than $4,000 in fines.

In neighbouring Mississauga, things aren't much better. In 1999, ice-cream trucks won the right to do business in this city but are forbidden to work streets in residential neighbourhoods--historically, the kingdom of the musical vans.

The official line from municipal politicians is that they're clamping down on the ice-cream truck because residents say they don't want them cruising their streets. But the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. When the City of Mississauga recently polled residents on whether they wanted the novelty trucks in their neighbourhood, a staggering 93 per cent said yes. And any concerns that municipal officials have about safety melt in the face of the fact that the last accident in the province involving a child and an ice-cream truck occurred in Windsor, Ont., in 1970 (it wasn't fatal).

Of all places to pick on the ice-cream man (or lady), the southern Ontario region has just sweltered its way through one of the most oppressive summers on record. With repeated heat waves in the high 30s, and citizens told not to turn their air conditioners any cooler than 26C due to power shortages, it's hard to believe that cherished summer icon, the Good Humour man, isn't being welcomed with good humour. Rather, it seems municipal officials would prefer to see him driven out of town.