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Cash or Card for a Cone? Van Leeuwen Must Take Both, N.Y.C. Says.

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Prospects at Van Leeuwen Ice Cream in New York Metropolis may be sure of two issues at checkout: paying at the very least $6.50 for one scoop and paying solely by bank card.

A kind of is altering.

The New York Metropolis Division of Client and Employee Safety introduced on Thursday that it had entered right into a settlement settlement with Van Leeuwen that requires the ice cream firm to adjust to the town’s cashless ban regulation and pay $33,5000 in excellent civil penalties.

Town stated that Van Leeuwen has refused to adjust to the regulation, which forbids companies to just accept solely bank card funds, because it went into impact in November 2020. Van Leeuwen has 19 areas in New York Metropolis and one other dozen nationwide.

In an announcement, the town stated it had obtained “dozens of client complaints” shortly after the ban went into impact. The Workplace of Administrative Trials, which handles violation summonses from 19 metropolis companies, discovered Van Leeuwen to be in violation of the cashless ban greater than 90 instances, in keeping with the settlement settlement.

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The corporate repeatedly failed to seem on the majority of the executive hearings and didn’t pay “some” of the excellent penalties. The settlement was reported by Eater.

Van Leeuwen didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Thursday.

On Oct. 11, the town notified Van Leeuwen that it deliberate to hunt an injunction within the New York State Supreme Court docket, “which prompted Van Leeuwen to lastly and instantly comply,” in keeping with the town’s assertion.

“Money is king, which is why the Cashless Ban Legislation was handed to guard the unbanked and underbanked in our metropolis,” Mayor Eric Adams stated within the assertion. “We is not going to permit any enterprise to make the most of this weak inhabitants or penalize clients only for wanting to make use of money to pay for issues.”

The mayor stated the settlement with Van Leeuwen “sends a transparent message that those that repeatedly violate this regulation will probably be held accountable.”

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As a part of the settlement, Van Leeuwen additionally agreed to take away all signage, stickers and placards indicating that they don’t settle for money and that each one New York Metropolis areas start accepting money as of Oct. 17.

Van Leeuwen additionally stated within the settlement that it plans to put in reverse ATMs, which dispense a debit card in change for money, at sure New York Metropolis areas. Not one of the metropolis’s areas could refuse to just accept money till they’ve put in the machines.

Pete Van Leeuwen, his brother Ben Van Leeuwen and their associate, Laura O’Neill, started promoting ice cream in 2008 out of yellow vehicles in New York Metropolis with flavors like natural Oregon peppermint, biodynamic single-estate Ceylon cinnamon, pistachio made with handpicked nuts from Sicily and vanilla with natural beans from Papua New Guinea.

These vehicles shortly multiplied throughout the town as the recognition of meals vehicles proliferated within the 2010s. However by 2020, Van Leeuwen was not simply the upscale neighborhood ice cream truck: The corporate obtained $18.7 million in funding from the San Francisco non-public fairness agency Nextworld Evergreen. Based on its web site, Van Leeuwen now has 33 brick-and-mortar storefronts throughout the nation, together with in Texas, Pennsylvania and California, with six extra within the works and has grow to be a favourite amongst vegans for utilizing nut milk alternate options.

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