Cops: Ice-cream vendor had a peeculiar sanitation practice

Forget yellow snow. Beware yellow Popsicles if you see the ice-cream man cruising through Bucks County and Trenton.

Responding to a motorist's tip, police stopped ice-cream truck driver Yassir Hassan as he weaved dangerously on Route 1 near the Oxford Valley exit in Middletown Township on Friday and charged him with drunken driving because, they said, he appeared visibly intoxicated and had wine stashed in his truck.

The wine was their least-disturbing discovery, though.

Authorities said that they found urine stored in several water bottles placed throughout the truck, including one in the freezer alongside the ice-cream treats.

"It was disgusting," said one person who saw the truck and asked for anonymity, fearing litigious reprisal from the truck's owner, Jack & Jill/MidAtlantic Vending Co.

Hassan, 46, of Trenton, faces a June 1 preliminary hearing.

Alan Drazen, a MidAtlantic vice president, said that Hassan was an independent contractor who leased the Jack & Jill truck just two days before his arrest. His contract was terminated after his arrest, Drazen said.

Drazen said in an email that Hassan's route was in Trenton and that "he was only driving through that area on his way back [to the Northeast Philadelphia lot where Jack & Jill trucks are stored] at the end of the day."

But Martin Moore, the main registered environmental-health specialist with Trenton's health department, said that the city requires all mobile food vendors to register with the city and undergo a background check and a vehicle inspection before they can hit the streets.

Hassan did none of those things, said Moore, who faulted Hassan and his company for not ensuring that he followed the rules.

"If we ever see him in Trenton [selling food], we're going to call police, because he does not belong on our streets," Moore said, adding that any Jack & Jill vendor would encounter similar censure. The company has no drivers licensed to sell in Trenton.