Seafront venders along Madeira Drive have reportedly faced threats from unlicensed ice cream van drivers. Shopkeepers have claimed that the competition posed to their businesses by illicit ice cream venders has become verbally aggressive.
The manager of the Modern World seafront cafe, Neil Sykes, says he was recently subject to threats by unlicensed ice cream venders:
When I told them they can’t trade here without a licence, they said they’d come back, burn my shop to the ground, and cut off my head.
And then when we try to take their details down, we’ve had them screech off and give us the finger out the window.
There are kids around for god’s sake. They’ve got absolutely no respect.
Though dozens of unlicensed venders are uncovered by the council’s seafront office each year, this sort of behaviour is unprecedented. Ron Smith, Neil’s father, owns ice cream parlours throughout Brighton and acknowledges that this sort of seafront rivalry has existed for years, yet he has “never known it to get this ugly.”
Chris Ingall, Seafront Operations Manager, assured that the seafront office are doing everything they can to tackle the issue:
We’ve got a long coastline: it’s easy pickings for them.
In the past we’ve done a pretty good job managing this along the promenade and up towards Hove. But what we’ve seen this year is traders moving from that end of town and coming to Madeira Drive.
We want to protect seafront traders who are selling ice cream perfectly legally.
Of course, our team is also in charge of keeping the beach safe and as you can understand we have got a lot on in the summer. Our lifeguards are busy patrolling the beach and saving lives. But we do patrol, engage and chase off unlicensed drivers where we can.
We also document pictures of unlicensed traders and send them over to Brighton and Hove parking enforcement.
Ingall has urged licensed shopkeepers and ice cream venders to report both illicit trading and threats of this nature.
