Cops Cracking Down on Softee Trucks After “Altercation”
Fights between trucks is nothing new, but fighting with a cop? That’s kind of crazy. The rumors swirling around Midtown today is that on Tuesday an ice cream truck driver got into some kind of “altercation” with a police officer. Nobody wanted to say exactly what happened, or who started it, but we’ve heard that the ice cream truck driver is now in the hospital- and has been fired from his job. One thing is for sure, even though the driver wasn’t a licensed Mister Softee vendor (he drove one of the generic trucks) yesterday was a tough day for *all* ice cream vendors in Midtown.
Miss Softee didn’t want to speak on the record about any of this (after all, there’s a saying about vendor fight club) but she did want to point out how unfair it is that one bad driver could ruin it for all the good Mister Softee drivers, trying to follow the rules.
“The person who got in the fight should be punished, because what happened should have never happened. You have to treat local law enforcement with respect. They’re putting their lives on the line, and we have to work with them and we have to respect them. But kicking us all out of our spots isn’t fair either.”
She did confirm that the spot in question was in Midtown (near Bryant Park), and the driver who got in the fight isn’t even a regular in the spot. It was raining on Tuesday and the ice cream vendor who spent the past 5 years parked in the spot in question, without incident, decided to stay home. Now his spot is most likely ruined forever.
When it comes to fighting, “Mister Softee” trucks probably have the worst record of anybody… and how can you condone fighting with a cop? But there are a few good ones (like Miss Softee) and it would suck if the bad ones ruin it for the good. Hopefully this will all blow over soon…
Related:
Rule #1 of Vendor Fight Club is You Don’t Talk About Vendor Fight Club
Posted by Zach Brooks at 1:45 pm, July 15th, 2010 under Mister Softee, Street Vendor Issues.
11 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
11 Comments
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what is the difference between a licensed truck and an unlicensed truck if they are both run by mr. softee? like would you be able to spot the difference if two drove by? is it still considered a mr. softee truck or is it just a random ice cream truck?
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They aren’t both run by mister softee… technically real Mister Softee trucks pay licensing fees to the mister softee company, and use all mister softee brand products.
It’s like calling any tissue Kleenex. Technically they’re not all kleenex…
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I only mentioned it because in the past, the owner of Mister Softee has taken issue with the media referring to “Mister Softee” trucks, when the trucks in question were just generic soft serve trucks.
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okay… using the keenex concept… there are two tissue boxes and only one says “kleenex” while the other says “sneezeys” right?
its not like one says “kleenex” and the other says “cleanex”
these concepts intrigue me
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I do believe that generic trucks can’t use any official Mister Softee branding (pics, words, jingle). I know because I only do to the licensed Mister Softee trucks. I’m picky.
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I just got back from a long walk down sixth and saw tons of mister softee trucks. (some didn’t say mister softee but two did). Maybe they cleared out and came back after the police sweep. I was thinking that there seemed to be more ice cream trucks than usual out today.
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Miss Softee…Hancuffs… lol
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Well played….
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Poor form.
(I couldn’t resist)
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Hope they don’t hassle Miss Softee.
Just broke the first rule…
For shame.