Permit law could freeze ice cream biz

Photograph: MORRISANIA'S ICE CREAM MAN: Alfredo Thiebaud may lose his 53 street-cart licenses. Photo Credit: Lynda Liu.

By Perri Colley, Staff Reporter

The Thiebauds' hand-cranked ice cream machine doesn't package pints fast enough to keep the family operation out of the bankruptcy they fear under a new law prohibiting any individual or company from owning more than one pushcart permit.

Alfredo Thiebaud and his daughter Sophia have been experimenting with packaging their tropical-flavored ice cream for supermarkets after selling exclusively to pushcart vendors for the last 18 years.

But unless the vendors get an exemption from the law, the Thiebauds will have to buy high-tech packaging equipment and make supermarkets their main clients.

Since Thiebaud opened Delicioso Coco Helado at 849 St. Ann's Ave. in Morrisania, its yearly $1 million in sales have depended almost solely on pushcart vending permits it bought from the city.

The Thiebauds loaned their 53 permits to their vendors without charge.

"We thought this was the way we would live our lives, but the city has given us a rude awakening," Sophia Thiebaud said.

The City Council passed the law, which takes effect next January, in an attempt to make the food vending business more honest, said David Rosado, the Thiebauds' city councilman.

Some vending organizations buy annual city permits for $250 and rent them to vendors for as much as $12,000, said Hemansu Mangal of the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation.

While it will stop the permit scalping, the legislation also threatens honest businesses like Delicioso, Mangal said.

Thiebaud charges vendors only for the ice cream and provides free pushcarts and free dry ice to keep the ice cream cold, .

Rosado said he knows the law s unfair to the Thiebauds, and he voted against it. Now he's pushing the council to consider an exemption for ice cream companies -- like Delicioso and Mr. Softie -- from the one-permit limit. If vendors have a choice of selling ice cream for six months a year or something nonseasonal like hot dogs, pretzels or nuts for 12 months, most would vend the latter.

"We could have to go bankrupt," Sophia Thiebaud said, alluding to the $300,000 the company borrowed to buy equipment needed to meet their vendors' growing demand.

If the exemption falls through, the Thiebauds fear the loss of the vendors will make it hard to pay off their current debt and to borrow an additional $750,000 to remake Delicioso into an ice cream packaging and distribution business.

Mangal said his organization -- which uses state, federal and private money to strengthen borough businesses -- will find a low-interest lender for the Thiebauds at the end of their eight-month vending season in October.

Delicioso may survive, but its 53 vendors may not get permits in the new lottery.

There are 6,000 licensed vendors in the city but only 2,700 permits for the pushcarts and trucks they operate, said Steve Linden, the health department director for permits.

In the past, when large businesses bought lots of permits, they organized vendors in shifts, with several vendors using one permit. Now, street vendors must apply for their own permits.

Many of Delicioso's vendors have worked for the company since it was incorporated in 1978. They make as much as $8,000 a season, Mr. Thiebaud said.

"We've always been loyal to our vendors," Sophia Thiebaud said. "We let them have the vending permit every year unless they get too old or pass away."


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The Bronx Beat, February 27, 1995