A Chill on Ice Cream : Vendors: Ride with a good humor man is full of bad humor, thanks to Oceanside’s ordinance proposed after complaints.

He fires up the dinged and dented van, hot-wires the temperamental speaker gizmo, and chugs off for another afternoon of American tradition along the rough streets of Oceanside.

For five years, ice cream man Frank Morales has cruised these familiar and sometimes dangerous neighborhoods, the van’s amplifier wanly repeating the same few tunes, over and over, like a tedious conversation.

“Pop Goes the Weasel.” “Turkey in the Straw.” Kiddie music, relentlessly droning in the brain, dozens of times an hour, scores of times a day.

“I hate this music,” Morales said sourly.

Apparently, so do some of the locals.

After years of complaints about loud, incessant music, countless passes down the block and purported safety hazards, Oceanside has passed on first reading an ordinance putting a chill on ice cream vendors. The law comes up for final action in a couple of weeks.

Other cities, such as Vista and Anaheim, are doing likewise. In recent years, vendors have gotten cold stares from local governments in Inglewood, Carson and a scattering of other cities across the nation.

Suddenly, the ice cream man--who may have wearied of the music but not the occupation--fears becoming an endangered species.

“Ice cream vendors are part of Americana,” said Bruce Ginsberg, president of the International Ice Cream Corp. in Boston. “It’s not a growth industry, but it’s an important industry. We shouldn’t let it die off.”

Ginsberg relates a joyous history going back to the days of the pony boys--vendors who sold ice cream from wagons and thus began a long line of independent businessmen who have put a sparkle in the eyes of children and won the trust of parents.

The sugar-coated world is changing, however.

Worried about increased regulation by local government, the International Assn. of Ice Cream Vendors last year started collecting money for a court challenge when the right case comes along.

“We’re trying to build some legal defense funds for cases we think are constitutionally incorrect,” said Pete Cryan, executive director of the association. “Vendors individually can’t afford the cost of trying to overturn the ordinances.”

Oceanside’s ordinance doesn’t prohibit vending, but will restrict amplified music, require truck safety inspections and limit the ice cream man to two passes an hour on any street.

“We’ve been receiving a lot of complaints by people who think they’re being bombarded by those trucks and their music,” said Larry Bauman, a spokesman for the city of Oceanside.

“Some drivers are just parking their trucks in key locations and letting the music run and run, waiting for the kids,” he said.

In neighboring Vista, where a similar ordinance was approved last year, some residents griped that ice cream trucks passed down their streets 10 times in an hour.

Vendors like Morales, a pleasant, slightly built 21-year-old, say abuses by the few are causing local government to overreact and threaten the livelihood of the majority.

He supports safety requirements, but complains that turning down the volume and limiting the number of times vendors can travel the street may mean he will be forced to go elsewhere.

“When the music’s too low, people won’t hear you inside the house,” Morales said. “They’ve got to know you’re coming so they have time to get money before you’re on the next street.”

Although the ice cream man can’t be stereotyped--in fact, some are women--the 13 trucks traversing Oceanside are driven by members of ethnic minorities serving mainly black and Latino neighborhoods.

Morales’ uncle began the family business, which is now split among four relatives operating 16 trucks in Oceanside, Vista and Carlsbad. Ice cream has been the family’s entree into the American dream.

Frank Morales, in his first year at Palomar College, is paying his tuition with the proceeds from Eye Poppers, Big Sticks, gut-clogging Gummi Bears and other treats sold to kids who rush up with fists full of coins.

If the city ordinance kills his trade, Morales doesn’t know what he will do.

“There aren’t a lot of jobs right now,” he said.

And this job isn’t always as easy as it looks.

His van, covered with a montage of ice cream and candy stickers, putts down distressed streets and turns into an alley littered with a dead refrigerators, two moribund sofas and graffiti-covered dumpsters.

Most kids are friendly to Morales, but others are hotly argumentative about the price of goods, or whatever else bothers them.

This particular alley wasn’t a wise choice this day, as the news reporter and photographer who rode with Morales drew glowers and raised suspicions. The photographer hurried back into the truck after a teen-ager demanded to know what he was doing and flashed a holstered gun.

“Sometimes it’s unsafe. I’m used to it,” Morales said.

He’s also used to the cloying music, recalling that “the first three or four months after I started, I used to dream about this stuff.”

Morales works five or six hours a day, sometimes seven days a week, and puts in about nine hours a day during the summer.

Low-income neighborhoods are where he and the other vendors do best in Oceanside.

“The poor people are the ones who buy,” he said. “The rich people, let’s face it, they have ice cream of their own in their houses. They hardly let their kids out of the house.”

He resents the ordinance, which the City Council approved last week, believing it reflects racism.

“If there’d be white people doing business in Oceanside, (city officials) would probably show more consideration,” he said.

But such issues are lost as Morales busily cruises, his well-trained eyes scanning for young customers.

Tracy Lombard, a 23-year-old mother, gives the high sign, and soon her daughter, Jessica, 3, has a multicolored Super Pop smeared around her mouth almost as though she’s consciously turned herself into an art project.

The mother, who hasn’t yet noticed the cleanup that awaits her, agrees that ice cream trucks seem to venture down the street frequently. But for her, the only problem it causes is financial rather than aesthetic.

“Every time they come down the street, Jessica comes in for some money,” Lombard said.

Other customers are almost militant when they learn the city is regulating the people who supply their sweet tooth.

“What!” responded one teen-ager. “You mean they’re (messing) with the ice cream man?”