RANT: They've banned ICE CREAM TRUCK music?

STOP THE PRESSES.
A town here in BC has banned ice cream trucks. Lumped in with all the douchebags who create “Mobile Noise” via blaring music, commercial inducements, and other stupidities, the age-old rite of childhood, The Noble Ice Cream Truck, has been banned from this town of uptight fucks who don’t remember what it was like as an 8-year-old to hear those tinny strains in the distance and go running like a fiend with emptied piggy bank funds jingling in their short pockets, all in a quest to score a Creamsicle.
Sure, there are asshat hot dog vendors and other food trucks trying to whore out their wares with voluminous music, but the ICE CREAM TRUCK?
The ice cream truck is a part of the fabric of my childhood. I remember those moments, profoundly.
Did I get ice cream every time it passed? No, probably one out of 10 times, if that. But when I did, it was blissful. And when I didn’t, it was comforting to know I lived in a world that still had ice cream.
Music has been used for selling ice cream for nearly 90 years. It began, some say, in Britain, where ice cream bikes outfitted with little freezers would have a variety of tinny tunes to attract those around them.
Not hot dog trucks, not popcorn carts, no one else used music for all those years. Not industry-wide, anyhow.
For most of us, there’s something natural about a hot, hot blue sky day with sap dripping off trees, sweat pouring off your face, and heat shimmering on blacktop roads, as the tinny tinkling music of an ice cream truck begins to be heard in the distance. It conjures visions of lemonade in tall glasses, children laughing, and good times had by all. “Don’t sweat it! The ice cream truck is coming! Sweet relief!”
If it makes the residents of (West) Kelowna feel better, I too dislike loud noises, annoying trucks, businesses piping music onto their sidewalks, and more.
But don’t fuck with the ice cream truck. Don’t mess with my nostalgia.
If there’s any one business that deserves to have their music rights grandfathered in, it’s the ice cream truck.
I’m allergic to ice cream these days, and it’s a once-or-twice-a-year thing, and I’ll probably never even eat at an ice cream truck again, but I hope I never, ever stop hearing them.
In fact, last week, when I heard my first one tinkling down the streets of my new city and new neighbourhood, I giggled and turned off the TV just to enjoy the music.
That’s not noise pollution. That’s a Band-aid for my jaded soul.
I’ll never be moving to West Kelowna, I guess. A world without ice cream trucks is a world that’s just a little too cold for me.

3 thoughts on “RANT: They've banned ICE CREAM TRUCK music?

  1. sassy

    The West Kelowna Councillors who voted for this ban are prime examples of people who have too much time and too little common sense.
    Their claim to fame is that they have put West Kelowna on the *sillines* map. What a legacy!!

  2. Dee Dee

    Call me a prude…but I personally HATE the ice cream truck coming into our neighbourhood, it has nothing to do with the music… it has to do with everyday it comes into our complex and plays the music and everyday my child wants ice cream…. and the ice cream is so very expensive, it’s not like it is 50 cents or a dollar, it is 4 -5 dollars for a simple popcicle, a lot of parents especially if they have 3 or more children would go broke having to supply ice cream daily to there family. I know you can just say no to them, but that stupid sound of the truck just makes me feel horrible to keep saying no to my child when they want ice cream so badly every time they hear the tune from the truck. I can see it being at parked in parks and play area’s but get out of my space on my home territory…. there that is my rant, and I know that a lot of parents feel the same….

    1. Jim

      The kids want ice cream for 2 reasons, the obvious one to have an ice cream, the social one to be part of the group that has ice cream. Keep some in the freezer and when the truck shows up, let them have it.

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