34 Ice Cream Trucks Towed in Midtown ‘Operation Meltdown’

While operating an ice cream truck in less urban areas may simply mean pulling up to a park, ball field or schoolyard, in Midtown Manhattan it means contending with some of the tightest parking regulations around, an area the legal complaint calls “the most densely congested streets in New York City.”

And an area with strict rules for vendor parking — and hawkers and hucksters alike.

“No peddler, vendor, hawker or huckster shall permit his car, wagon or vehicle to stand on any street when stopping, standing or parking is prohibited,” city regulations state, according to the Department of Transportation.

As the number of food trucks has increased in recent years in Midtown, parking tickets have become a crippling expense for some vendors, said Matthew Shapiro, legal director for the Street Vendor Project, an advocacy group with the Urban Justice Center in Manhattan.

He said his group has been unable to get the city to allow food trucks to park in commercial zones, or to designate permissible parking areas.

“There’s no viable place for food trucks to park in the city,” Mr. Shapiro said. “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.”

Jeffrey Zucker, a longtime lawyer for Mister Softee, whose trucks were not named by the city as scofflaws, called it common practice for some truck operators to try sidestepping tickets by reincorporating each winter and changing their truck registration.

He said Mister Softee requires its franchisees to pay tickets promptly or risk losing the route.

“Getting tickets is part of the game in New York City,” Mr. Zucker said, “but you have to pay them.”