Ice Cream Trucks to Be Prohibited in Butler

The Board of Health has recently voted to amend the borough code as it pertains to canvassers, solicitors and peddlers which would severely limit—and essentially eliminate—the opportunity for mobile refreshment vendors, such as ice cream trucks, to do business within the Borough of Butler.

“They’re going to limit what can and cannot be done as far as mobile vendors are concerned,” Butler Borough Clerk Mary O’Keefe said. “They don’t want mobile vendors, so they’re in the process of adopting an ordinance to amend the code.”

O’Keefe went on to explain that the board of health voted to take out the section of the ordinance that allowed mobile vendors. This is a move that, in essence, makes it possible for the board to prohibit any mobile vendor.

Butler Mayor Bob Alviene, who acknowledged that this is a decision that rests with the board of health and not the Butler Borough Council, stated his understanding as to why the board would come to such a decision amid growing safety concerns for children during rapidly changing times.

“(The board was) even anti-ice cream trucks. They don’t even trust what the person’s selling on the truck,” Alviene said. “We are in different times now, and the concern for the children has been escalated.”

Still, certain members of the borough council felt like this measure may have been taking things just a bit too far.

“I could understand (prohibiting) a hot dog truck that figures he’s going to park out on the highway and sell hot dogs, but an ice cream truck, it’s mobile. It isn’t fixed,” Councilman Bob Fox said. “I remember, being on the planning board all these years, talking about a hot dog truck or a lunch wagon that just parks itself on a highway, but never an ice cream truck.”