Drug-Pushing Ice Cream Man Melts Another Childhood Joy

on March 21, 2011 at 1:42 PM

When I think of summers growing up, I remember the joy of hearing the musical tunes that signaled the ice cream man. Racing into the house, screen door slamming behind me to beg for money. When I was lucky, I then raced off to find that truck and get my treat from this magical man. Now, some ass has gone and ruined those kinds of future memories for children everywhere whose parents are going to be concerned the ice cream man has more than push-ups in their truck and may be also pushing drugs from it. Yes, beware the ice cream man!

In New York recently, Louis Scala and 31 other people were busted in a huge drug sting in which they were buying and selling drugs from an ice cream truck. There amongst the bomb pops and ice cream sandwiches were oodles of oxycodone pills -- choose your flavor.

Louis Scala's Lickety Split truck would pull up in upscale neighborhoods and sell ice cream to kids one minute and drugs to druggies the next. It was genius, really, because who in the hell would suspect the ice cream man. It was quite profitable too -- they apparently raked in more than $1 million in a one-year period. But at such a high cost for the rest for us ... in so many ways.

Runners were lured in to do the dirty work too. Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan told Reuters:

This narcotics organization was as predatory as any I have ever seen -- in its structure and distribution practices. Most of the individuals recruited to fill bogus prescriptions were among society's most vulnerable -- young, financially desperate, and addicted to oxycodone.

I'm not naive; I know drugs are sold under most of our noses, every day, but did they really have to go there -- to the ice cream truck? There are so few innocent childhood joys that are innocent anymore. Sell your drugs if you must, but don't taint childhoods and put children in dangerous drug-dealing situations.

I hope whatever charges those arrested face, the judge takes into account the disappointed children everywhere whose parents are going to just say no to the ice cream man after hearing this story.

Do you let your children get treats from the ice cream man? Will this story change your mind?

Image via mecredis/Flickr

About the author Julie Ryan Evans

can be found writing from coffee houses wherever she may be. The quality of her days is largely influenced by the seat she nabs and whether a protein plate is available.

Filed Under: crime, in the news, safety

Comments (22)

Nonmember comment from Shelly

on Mar 21, 2011 at 1:54 PM

When I was little an ice cream truck driver got arrested for molesting a bunch of kids. A year later, they were banned in my city. They would not let us get ice cream for that year. I would not let my son but ice cream for a truck. Have you seen the people driving those trucks? They are usually really creepy old men.

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butterflymkm

on Mar 21, 2011 at 2:06 PM

My mom wouldn't let me get ice cream from the ice cream dude because she said he was a child molestor. I'm not sure if he was or not. I think my mother was just a little paranoid, but after reading this maybe she wasn't!

Facebook comment from Paulina Rudzinska

on Mar 21, 2011 at 5:16 PM

I swear the Ice-Cream truck that goes around my neighborhood does something they are not supposed to. All the time I hear it coming around at 9pm (who sells ice cream at that time) and just hangs around the corner. It's a shame.

sunnybunny5us

on Mar 23, 2011 at 3:22 PM

My mother back in 1970 told me that about the ice cream man (that she heard on the news he was a child molester). I was scared of him until I got big enough to read for myself and understand and realized it was just one ice cream man, not all of them.

Sarasahmof3

on Mar 24, 2011 at 11:26 AM

I am friends with our ice cream man. He is a great guy that gives me breaks on ice cream. If I am short on one trip he lets me pay him back the next trip he makes. He knows I am good for it. I only buy from him and he knows it, mainly because he always has my favorites and he is cheap. I can not wait until college lets out for the summer and he starts coming by.

KTMOM

on Apr 4, 2011 at 2:45 PM

That is creepy. Typically we do not get ice cream from the truck, but if my son does, we are right there.

Pnukey

on Sep 20, 2011 at 5:34 PM

Dammit. We were always warned as kids to watch out for the weirdos, but to think they're still doing it makes me mad. We don't have an ice cream man who stops around here, so I guess we don't have to worry about it.