czsz
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2007
- Messages
- 6,043
- Reaction score
- 7
Noise giving pols ice cream headache: Trucks? jingles jangles nerves
By Michele McPhee
The Boston City Council is screaming that ice cream trucks are too noisy, and it?s seeking a ban on the creepy calliope music that is booming from the loudspeakers of soft serve shills across the city, the Herald has learned.
City Councilor Sal LaMattina said he has been repeatedly awakened late at night by the jangly jingle of one Frosty truck, the music accompanied by an amplified female voice screeching, ?Hello,? and he will call for a hearing today on whether ice cream trucks should be forced to go back to tingling bells rather than bellowing tunes.
?I?m hearing that music, waking me up, through my soundproof windows late at night. I am getting constant complaints about it, even from my wife,? said LaMattina, who lives in East Boston.
At a neighborhood meeting in Jeffries Point this week, dozens of residents complained about the Frosty truck. LaMattina?s office has also received complaining calls about other ice cream and popsicle purveyors, he said.
?The music is driving everyone crazy,? LaMattina said.
But not everyone believes the City Council should be putting the heat on ice cream vendors. City Councilor Stephen Murphy said he will back LaMattina?s request for a hearing on ice cream truck noise, but not before saying: ?Yeah, it?s annoying. But not as annoying as gunshots.?
Yet in neighborhoods across the Hub, residents have complained that the music is not only loud, it is eerie, councilors say.
?Some of this music that I hear blaring should be in a horror movie, not coming from an ice cream truck,? said City Council President Maureen Feeney, who lives in Dorchester and said that she has been peeved at the cheery tunes herself. ?What happened to the little bells they used to have?
?They park in one spot and play the same jingles over and over and over. It?s awful. Every neighborhood in the city has been disrupted by it,? she said. ?They are a public nuisance.?
But Steve Hale, 27, who lives in Winthrop and works in East Boston, said that a move to ban one of the sweet sounds of summer is ?ridiculous.?
?As a kid if I was in the house and I heard the ice cream truck I?d grab money from my mom and run outside,? Hale said. ?You don?t look for the ice cream guy, you hear him.?
Lily Alvarado, 46, who was watching her 13-year-old son play baseball at Peters Park in the South End yesterday, said the ice cream truck that pulls up to the ballpark on hot summer afternoons doesn?t bother her.
?To me, it?s no biggie,? she said. ?I don?t think it?s an issue.?
But Craig Sullivan, 38, said he would welcome the ban. ?We are not trying to prevent anyone from making a living. This is not a snobbery thing,? said Sullivan and his wife, Mutsumi, who moved to Eastie from the Back Bay. ?But there is one guy who parks and plays the same tune for hours. It?s enough to make you go completely mental.?
Even an ice cream truck owner parked outside of Piers Park on the East Boston waterfront said he would welcome the silence.
?It?s annoying after a while. You?re watching TV in your house, and you hear the music and you have to turn up TV,? said Leo Addivinola, 48.
?I don?t play it. I don?t need it,? he added, pointing to the pictures of ice cream cones and other frozen treats festooned on the side of his truck. ?Everyone knows what we?re selling.?
By Michele McPhee
The Boston City Council is screaming that ice cream trucks are too noisy, and it?s seeking a ban on the creepy calliope music that is booming from the loudspeakers of soft serve shills across the city, the Herald has learned.
City Councilor Sal LaMattina said he has been repeatedly awakened late at night by the jangly jingle of one Frosty truck, the music accompanied by an amplified female voice screeching, ?Hello,? and he will call for a hearing today on whether ice cream trucks should be forced to go back to tingling bells rather than bellowing tunes.
?I?m hearing that music, waking me up, through my soundproof windows late at night. I am getting constant complaints about it, even from my wife,? said LaMattina, who lives in East Boston.
At a neighborhood meeting in Jeffries Point this week, dozens of residents complained about the Frosty truck. LaMattina?s office has also received complaining calls about other ice cream and popsicle purveyors, he said.
?The music is driving everyone crazy,? LaMattina said.
But not everyone believes the City Council should be putting the heat on ice cream vendors. City Councilor Stephen Murphy said he will back LaMattina?s request for a hearing on ice cream truck noise, but not before saying: ?Yeah, it?s annoying. But not as annoying as gunshots.?
Yet in neighborhoods across the Hub, residents have complained that the music is not only loud, it is eerie, councilors say.
?Some of this music that I hear blaring should be in a horror movie, not coming from an ice cream truck,? said City Council President Maureen Feeney, who lives in Dorchester and said that she has been peeved at the cheery tunes herself. ?What happened to the little bells they used to have?
?They park in one spot and play the same jingles over and over and over. It?s awful. Every neighborhood in the city has been disrupted by it,? she said. ?They are a public nuisance.?
But Steve Hale, 27, who lives in Winthrop and works in East Boston, said that a move to ban one of the sweet sounds of summer is ?ridiculous.?
?As a kid if I was in the house and I heard the ice cream truck I?d grab money from my mom and run outside,? Hale said. ?You don?t look for the ice cream guy, you hear him.?
Lily Alvarado, 46, who was watching her 13-year-old son play baseball at Peters Park in the South End yesterday, said the ice cream truck that pulls up to the ballpark on hot summer afternoons doesn?t bother her.
?To me, it?s no biggie,? she said. ?I don?t think it?s an issue.?
But Craig Sullivan, 38, said he would welcome the ban. ?We are not trying to prevent anyone from making a living. This is not a snobbery thing,? said Sullivan and his wife, Mutsumi, who moved to Eastie from the Back Bay. ?But there is one guy who parks and plays the same tune for hours. It?s enough to make you go completely mental.?
Even an ice cream truck owner parked outside of Piers Park on the East Boston waterfront said he would welcome the silence.
?It?s annoying after a while. You?re watching TV in your house, and you hear the music and you have to turn up TV,? said Leo Addivinola, 48.
?I don?t play it. I don?t need it,? he added, pointing to the pictures of ice cream cones and other frozen treats festooned on the side of his truck. ?Everyone knows what we?re selling.?