FOOD & DRINK
Ever since the 1910s, when peddlers on horse-drawn carts began to ladle out vanilla at 15¢ a pailful, the traveling ice cream man has been an American folk hero. To the young, he has become better known than the fire chief, more welcome than the mailman, more respected than the corner cop. Once, when a Larchmont, N.Y., Good Humor man switched routes, 500 neighborhood tots signed a petition for his return.
But no matter how lovable he is, not everyone loves him. In recent years many a mother has tried to freeze the popsicle peddler off the streets. Dozens of communities have passed ordinances against him, and even in those towns where he can still operate, business is getting increasingly sticky.
Why are mothers turning on this summertime Santa? Complains one Lynn, Mass., housewife: "I wouldn't mind those trucks if they didn't always come at the wrong time. I just get my two-year-old to sleep in the afternoon when those damn chimes begin to sound." Adds another: "Once the ice cream man has been around, I can't get my children to eat anything. Two fudgesicles and dinner is out the window." Some people do not mind when the ice cream man cometh so much as how. The four-bar Good Humor tune that daily wafts over Beverly Hills struck such a sour note with Violinist Jascha Heifetz that he had his lawyer write up a complaint. Then, too, the trail of the ice cream man is apt to be a messy one. Observes a Chicago mother of four: "When those trucks pull away, my front lawn looks like a garbage dump. I break my back every day just picking up sticky wrappers."
There is also the danger of accidents. A three-year-old boy, hypnotized by the bell, is apt to make a headlong dash to get in his licks. In spite of the efforts of salesmen to teach caution, in California, Good Humor has been held culpable by the courts for numerous accidents that have cost the company from $10,000 to $100,000 in damages.
The result is that the mobile ice cream companies have fallen on hard times; their share of the entire ice cream market has dropped from 4% to 1% in the past four years. And the future looks equally frosty. In an effort to cut costs, Good Humor, which enjoys by far the largest slice of the mobile ice cream pie, has stopped dispensing napkins with its novelties. And letting droopsicles drip all over party dresses will hardly melt the opposition.