New York City Mayor and Democratic presidential hopeful Bill de Blasio ordered the NYPD to start seizing 46 bell-ringing ice-cream trucks this week in a sting operation, called Operation Meltdown, aimed to rein in rogue popsicle peddlers who avoided millions in taxes and violated traffic laws. CNN reports the operators amassed some 22,000 summonses and ignored nearly $4.5 million in parking fines and other traffic violations, including running red lights and parking in front of fire hydrants. The city says the operators created shell companies and changed the license-plate registrations for the ice-cream trucks to avoid paying fines. “We all know from common experience that ice-cream trucks are magnets for children,” Zachary W. Carter, the city’s corporation counsel said in a statement explaining the cold-treat crackdown. “In order to protect this particularly vulnerable category of pedestrians, our traffic laws must be strictly enforced.”
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