Q: We stay in a co-op constructing reverse a small park on East 77th Road. An ice cream truck parks on the entrance to the park, proper close to our condo, for 12 hours a day, with a diesel generator operating the whole time. We can’t open our home windows or sit on our balcony due to the noise and air air pollution. Is there something that may be executed? Lots of our neighbors complain about it. We’ve contacted 311, our Metropolis Council member, the police and the ice cream truck proprietor. Our efforts have completed nothing. What may be executed?
A: Ice cream vans are a ubiquitous a part of summer time in New York, and a staple at metropolis parks. So in the event you stay proper by a park, the vans, with their incessant jingles and rattling turbines, include the territory. Nonetheless, the truck operators, like different meals distributors, have to be licensed and permitted, and adjust to metropolis guidelines and rules.
The listing of guidelines is lengthy. Meals vans can’t idle with the engine operating. They can’t park too near a driveway, a loading zone, a subway entrance, a bus cease or a taxi stand. They usually should use generators, operated and vented in keeping with the producers’ tips, to maintain the meals chilly. The turbines additionally have to be registered with town’s Division of Environmental Safety and adjust to its noise and air codes.
You could possibly name 311 once more and ask for a DEP inspector to come back and make sure that the generator is working correctly. You could possibly additionally name your area people board (in your case that’s Manhattan Neighborhood Board 8) and ask them to comply with up in your behalf.
However the vendor can also be a enterprise proprietor in your neighborhood, so moderately than report him once more, attempt having one other dialog with him. Road distributors “don’t need to trigger issues as a result of they’re on the market on the road on a regular basis,” stated Matthew Shapiro, the authorized director of Street Vendor Project on the City Justice Middle. “The road is their enterprise place.”
The fumes and noise are a well being hazard for the employee greater than anybody else. A decade ago, town plugged a couple of meals carts into the grid, however the initiative fizzled out. Now, the Road Vendor Venture is engaged on a pilot program to energy a couple of meals carts with batteries to check the cleaner and quieter know-how. If it’s profitable (and will get funding), the know-how may probably work for bigger meals and ice cream vans, too.
“Why can’t we now have meals carts which are run on batteries?” Mr. Shapiro stated. “That might be higher for the distributors. That might be higher for town. That might be higher for everybody.”
If we will drive a automotive with an electrical battery, why not an ice cream truck?
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