Fearing coronavirus will infect kids, an activist in Fairhill hunts down prohibited ice cream trucks

Ice cream trucks roll down the streets in Asteria Vives’ agitated dreams, announcing themselves with treacly songs — “Little Brown Jug" or “Yankee Doodle.”

Always, the lumbering behemoths stop near a tight knot of children waving dollar bills. And the ice cream man fills a cone with ungloved hands and passes it, corona-coated, to an unsuspecting innocent.

“Horrible,” said Vives, 47, a community activist in Fairhill. “Every night, I dream of these trucks.”

Vives is obsessed. She is founder and director of Home Quarters and Friends Inc., a nonprofit serving low-income residents of Fairhill, where 55% of the population lives in poverty, making it the poorest neighborhood in America’s poorest big city.

Lately, she’s been waging a guerrilla-style campaign against the ice cream trucks that are showing up daily, despite a March 22 city order banning them because of the coronavirus scourge.

For her, the virus has hit home. She lost a friend, Philadelphia Police Lt. James Walker, 59, a 32-year veteran, who on Sunday became the first city employee to die of the disease. “I can’t talk about it,” she said from behind her black mask.

Vives, who suffers from asthma, stalks the streets of Fairhill in the afternoons, taking videos of encounters with ice cream men, which she sends to city and state officials. In one snippet, she confronts the driver of a truck from New Jersey called “the Chill.” She asks, “What are you doing, spreading the coronavirus?” He angrily waves her away, then drives off.

“He had no gloves,” Vives said later. “And he came right up to the kids. Even drug dealers are better at social distancing than ice cream guys.”

» READ MORE: High-income Philadelphians getting tested for coronavirus at far higher rates than low-income residents

Show up in Fairhill on any day during this pandemic and you’ll notice something civically uplifting: Almost everyone is wearing a mask and gloves.

“Resilient people living in deep poverty always figure things out,” said City Councilmember Maria Quiñones-Sánchez, whose district includes parts of Fairhill. She’s received videos from Vives, and said some trucks are being issued warnings that could lead to monetary sanctions.

On Tuesday, the Department of Licenses and Inspections shuttered a garage in the area used by ice cream trucks that “pretty clearly” were in violation of the order to stop rolling, said Karen Guss, L&I communications director.

She added, “The order is meant to limit situations where it’s clear that people who buy from a truck on the street will not distance themselves correctly.”

One of the region’s biggest mobile ice cream purveyors, Mr. Softee, pulled its trucks when the city order came down, said Jim Conway, vice president of the company, whose U.S. headquarters is in Runnemede, Camden County.

After five months with no income, drivers will be hurt financially, but “selling ice cream is not essential,” Conway said. “It’s not good citizenship to have trucks enticing children to come out, exchange money with them without proper distancing, then have the kids take money back into the house and infect everyone.”

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Conway said that the ice cream men Vives chases are essentially employees who’ve gone rogue.

“A lot are former Mr. Softee franchisees no longer in our system,” he said.

“They didn’t follow rules, they didn’t pay bills. They went independent, using our trucks as templates to slap together ice cream trucks with used equipment.”

The vehicles dispensing ice cream in Fairhill are shopworn and jerry-rigged, with loud exhausts and odd names. One truck carries signs announcing it as both “Mister Frostee” and “Mr. Frosty.” Several have warnings on the back to “Watch Our Childrens.”

“And,” Conway said, "I’m suspicious of their cleaning and sanitizing.”

Reached by a phone number displayed on a truck, an ice cream man named Ali said Vives once caught his truck on camera. He would not reveal his last name, adding that his colleagues are all aware of the angry woman who takes pictures.

“She doesn’t understand that someone else is driving around a truck which is not mine, but has my phone number on it. I’ve stopped work because of the coronavirus. I’m going to take my number off that truck. The other drivers tell customers they got a special license from the city to sell. It’s BS.”

Earlier this week in Fairhill, the sublime weather seemed incongruous with the health calamity, as the sun illuminated pink flowering trees and cars went by like rolling jukeboxes, windows rolled down to let in fresh air and pump out Latinx hip-hop.

It was almost too loud for Vives, straining to hear the jangly jingles signaling the proximity of soft ice cream being dispensed. For three hours one day, she walked the streets, past the Fairhill Grocery, past Julio’s Barbershop.

A man sitting outside on Lycoming Street asked Vives, “Hey, block captain, what about the ice cream trucks?”

“I’m working on it,” she said.

Vives feeds the homeless, hosts breakfasts honoring first responders, and creates workshops for residents learning money management. A never-married transplanted New Yorker, she lives alone, works in real estate occasionally, and runs a party venue.

Aware of acute hunger in the area, Vives understands why low-income parents, who spend their lives telling their children they can’t afford most things, have a soft spot for ice cream. It’s a relatively affordable treat they can proffer, making them feel like heroes, if only momentarily. That’s one of the reasons the ice cream sellers infuriate her: It’s as if they know this, and exploit it.

“The ice cream guys avoid Asteria,” said Vives’ neighbor Carmen Santiago, 59, a divorced mother of three grown children who lives on disability insurance. “They make me uncomfortable, selling during the virus.”

As Santiago spoke, Vives’ head shot up, a lioness sensing prey. That grating “Little Brown Jug” tune was playing not far away. She sprinted toward the sound, one, two, three blocks, until she reached a Mister Frostee/Mr. Frosty truck near the corner of Fairhill and Bristol Streets.

The ice cream guy was wearing a mask and gloves. That didn’t assuage Vives, who pressed the video button on her phone and started interrogating, though out of breath:

“Hi, you know you’re not supposed to be selling ice cream in the street, right?”

“Listen to me," the man said. “I got kids.”

“Guess what?” Vives said. “I can’t work, but I’m not spreading the virus.”

“You should see the other guy,” the ice cream man said, rolling over on a competitor. “Go after him. Why come to me?” With that, he slammed his window shut and drove off, leaving behind a bewildered little girl who wanted a cone.

A man in a NASA sweatshirt who wouldn’t give his name congratulated Vives: “I know where you’re coming from. It’s quarantine time. You give kids coronavirus over a quick buck?”

Vives was already sending the video to city officials. Then she offered a warning to any more renegade ice cream men:

“That driver thought I’d leave. They have to understand disease is in the air.

"And they can’t mess with Asteria Vives.”