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A mobile ice cream and coffee vendor is fighting to keep trading at Manly Beach after complaints by residents led to a licence review and possible closure.
Owners Joe Emms and Beth Leyland said they believed they complied with all of Auckland Council’s requirements, and beach-goers form big queues for their ice creams and coffee, providing lots of positive feedback, so they were surprised and concerned to hear that complaints had been made.
Council granted Big Manly Ice Cream a mobile trading licence in 2022 and renewed it at the end of last year. The van is located in front of Manly Sailing Club, on a paper road. The licence, which allows trading seven days a week, 7am-7.30pm, expires at the end of next month.
The sailing club supports the pair to continue trading on that site and supplies power in return for a donation.
However, residents complained about the impact of the business on the public using the reserve, including the location, and the safety of cables that run from the trailer to its power supply in the sailing club.
Hibiscus and Bays Local Board deputy chair Gary Brown says he forwarded residents’ complaints to the licensing team and is asking for the ice cream van to be moved away from the beachfront, and onto the reserve, where the local board has authority.
“You have to be fair to other local businesses which don’t have a beachfront location,” he says. “The van gets a prime spot, for the cost of a licence. Other businesses, such as the local dairy, pay rates. I can see both sides and we are looking for a compromise, so they can still trade, but off the beachfront.”
Brown says there is also good foot traffic behind the sailing club or on the reserve opposite the current location.
Emms and Leyland say they have built up a good business, with strong demand for their product. They say moving further from the sailing club would require using a generator, increasing their costs and the impact on the environment and local residents.
They started a petition to gauge public opinion, and support their fight to stay on the beachfront, receiving more than 2100 responses, with only four opposed.
“We have become part of the fabric of the local community,” Leyland says.
Last week, the couple sent their response to the licence review.
A decision is expected this week.
