Sugar Grove might ban ice cream vendors

Ice cream vendors, alert.

Sugar Grove may soon be outside of your confectionery limits.

The village is poised to prevent your Popsicles and parfaits from reaching the lips of its children.

Whether the proposed ban is a necessary step to guarantee safety, a drain on free enterprise or an ill-advised halt to a piece of Americana depends on whom you talk to.

Youngsters hearing the "ding ding" of the truck right before dinner is one issue, says Trustee Melisa Taylor, who is endorsing the ban. But she says the main concern is safety that includes -- but goes beyond -- preventing children from darting into the street.

According to Taylor, discussion about vendors heated up after a recent incident. A 46-year-old man who was driving an ice cream truck was arrested after reportedly exposing himself to a 3-year-old in Sugar Grove June 25. Police say the man had no criminal record and his employer, Aurora-based Eskimo Man, said he had passed a background check.

The incident has heightened Taylor's concern that the village currently has no controls.

"We don't have a history of the man who is giving ice cream to your child," Taylor said. "After talking to many parents, I get the feeling that overall, people are saying, 'Get rid of them.'"

Taylor said she has nothing against ice cream vendors and would support regulation if she thought it would work.

"I would love to find a way to effectively and efficiently regulate them, but I don't think we can do it now," she said. "I would support a ban."

According to village attorney Steven Andersson, Illinois law allows municipalities to regulate or prohibit vendors. Andersson said he will draft an ordinance banning the trucks. It would be up for a vote as early as Sept. 4.

Village President Sean Michels votes only to break a tie, but he stated he thought it would be "appropriate" to require vendors to register, rather than ban them.

"I want to encourage free enterprise," he said.

But Trustee Robert Bohler said he will vote for the ban and believes that the board is leaning toward prohibiting vendors, not regulating them.

"Even if we issued permits, we wouldn't have found out about this individual," Bohler said, referring to the man who was arrested.

Sugar Grove Police Chief Brad Sauer also said he would support a ban.

Carl Long of Kansas City, Mo., past president of the International Association of Ice Cream Vendors, says the association backs regulation and background checks "100 percent." He is concerned that a ban "would take away a part of Americana."

"There is an easy way to regulate ice cream vendors, and we would like to partner with the village in doing so," he said.

Long said he understands parents' concerns, but he believes the Sugar Grove incident is a rarity.

"I really think that pedophiles are lurking in the corners of shopping malls, not driving a truck and ringing a bell."