News flash: the ice cream truck is back, but still, no pretzels in Red Deer

Winter must be over. The ice cream truck made its rounds today on our block for the first time this year. I'm hoping it is a signal to RW that it is safe to take the snow tires off the car. And the fence is mostly done, or so I've been told.  These man things are hard to figure out with my small woman brain. They are doing something tonight that involves beer and concrete. When they are finished, I may be told the results. Or not.

In the meantime, I have been missing good soft pretzels, a desire fueled by a New York Times article on the finer points of pretzel making and availability in New York City, where, apparently there is a rebirth of pretzel-love.

When I lived in St. Louis, pretzels were an important part of city life. There it was somewhat of a tradition that retired old men who were looking for a reason to get out of the house, and wanted to do something other than sit with other old men in Jack in the Box drinking endless cups of coffee, sold soft pretzels at various locations throughout the city. They made there way to the pretzel bakeries before sparrow fart and then took up their posts selling the pretzels to those of us who were headed off to work without breakfast.

Apparently, the tradition continues. A decade ago, the pretzel vendor locations were fixed by municipal ordinance and municipal ordinances were more-or-less respected. This is no longer true. The Revolt of the Octogenarians has come to St. Louis.

From St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay's blog:

City inspectors generally have more urgent things to do than chase after octogenarian pretzel salesmen. If no one is hurting anyone, we generally don't enforce minor ordinance violations. For instance, some kids set up a skateboard park underneath a road overpass. Because they were not hurting anyone, we allowed them to stay there. We even installed trash cans for the kids to keep the place clean.

However, City departments do have an obligation to respond to residents’ complaints and to treat all businesses fairly. For whatever reason, the pretzel vendors were getting more and more aggressive. We got complaints from residents that the City was not enforcing the law.

The City is in the middle. If you complain about things like this, we will enforce the ordinances as the Board of Aldermen writes them. If you don’t, we probably will not.

So, if there are any old pretzel guys reading this, you should really consider talking one of those pretzel bakeries to close up shop in St. Louis and move to Red Deer, Alberta. If you set up your cart on Ross Street, you'll have plenty of business. We have bylaws here, but it will probably be at least a decade before pretzel vending is brought to the attention of the City Council, and by then I won't be driving to work without breakfast, and you will either be beyond caring or happy to drink endless cups of coffee at Tim Hortons in the morning.