Policy

The Crusade Against Playground Predators With Sugar-Filled Treats

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The New York Times reports that "parents" (at least three!) are "irate" about ice cream trucks. Evidently they are not too fond of snow cone pushcarts either. Because her 3-year-old daughter once "had an inconsolable meltdown about not being able to have a treat," Brooklyn mother Vicki Sell has gone on a rampage against the guys selling fruit-flavored ices at the local playground, demanding that the city shut them down. "It's really predatory for them," she tells the Times, "to be right inside the playground like this." She'd go after nearby ice cream trucks as well, but "since they are licensed, there is not much she can do about them." 

Sell insists, "I'm not a health freak by any means." (Does anyone who is not a health freak ever say that?) "I notice what happens to my daughter when she eats these sugar-filled things with all these additives," she explains. If only there were some way to prevent little Katherine from eating "these sugar-filled things" without banning them altogether. Sell wants us to know she is not a mean person. "I feel kind of bad about having developed this attitude," she says. Probably not as bad as the men whose livelihoods she's trying to ruin because she's afraid to say no to a 3-year-old.