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Friday, May 9, 1997
Street vending of ice cream banned in University
Park
UNIVERSITY PARK, Texas (AP) - After this summer, children in
this upper class Dallas suburb will no longer be able to run down
the street chasing after the ice cream man.
Fearing injury, the University Park City Council has banned
the sales effective Sept. 1.
University Park is the first city in the area with such a ban,
said Hoss Rafaty, owner of Yumi Ice Cream Co. His vendors sell
his name-brand products in more than 30 Dallas-Fort Worth area
cities.
University Park Mayor Pete Goldman said Wednesday that the
council made the change because of a March accident that seriously
injured a 6-year-old boy near Southern Methodist University. The
child was struck by a passing car while buying ice cream from
a street vendor.
Goldman said the council did not want to risk having another
child injured or killed to protect an icon of summer life. The
council voted Tuesday night.
"That's a chance I'm not willing to take to preserve an
American tradition," he said.
Some health care professionals agree.
Banning ice cream vendors from city streets is long overdue,
said Sandra Holdcraft, pediatric trauma care manager at Children's
Medical Center of Dallas.
Since May 1995 the hospital has treated 29 children either
injured or killed after buying ice cream from a street vendor,
Ms. Holdcraft said.
"They were either going to it or coming from it,"
she said.
Goldman, who estimated that 50 residents asked him to support
a ban, said ice cream is available throughout the community from
other sources.
"It isn't like our kids are going to do without it. It's
all over," he said. "So they're not going to do without
a thing."
But Rafaty said ice cream vendors aren't to blame.
"That's not solving the problem," he said. "There
are still going to be accidents as long as parents point their
fingers at the little guy." Send a Letter to
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Copyright ©1997,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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