New York City has seized 46 ice cream trucks in a sting operation after operators accumulated 22,000 summonses and almost $4.5 million in fines for traffic violations between 2009 and 2017, CNN reports.
Zachary W. Carter, who is New York City’s corporation counsel, said in a statement that ice cream truck operators had created dozens of “shell” companies and regularly re-registered their trucks as belonging to different corporations to avoid fines for running red lights, and blocking crosswalks and fire hydrants, among other violations.
Operators “sought to evade enforcement of our traffic laws through an elaborate shell game, transferring ownership of their ice cream trucks between and among dozens of phony companies, effectively shielding their trucks from fines and seizure,” he said, according to The New York Times.
"We all know from common experience that ice cream trucks are magnets for children," Carter added. "In order to protect this particularly vulnerable category of pedestrians, our traffic laws must be strictly enforced."
"No New Yorker is above the law -- especially those who try to ignore public safety laws and create dangerous situations for pedestrians, bikers and drivers," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
Matthew Shapiro, the legal director of the advocacy group the Street Vendor Project, a part of Manhattan’s Urban Justice Center, told the Times that “there’s no viable place for food trucks to park in the city. The city cracks down on the trucks, but they refuse to look at this issue and find a way to allow these folks to park.”
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