Photo: AFP
City officials are still scratching their heads over the riot that happened in Union Square on Friday after a popular social media star promised to hand out free video game consoles, but New York City councilmember Lincoln Restler took a firm stand that day instead against Mister Softee ice cream trucks. That statement left fellow councilman Joe Borelli perplexed. Speaking on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program, Borelli feels New York’s leaders should be riled up over the former and not the latter.
“I think what you saw was the police giving up,” Borelli theorized with Berman and Riedel as to why the NYPD couldn’t stop the rioters. “The second we stop them, they’re gonna get let out, no consequences, and the only person who’s gonna have any consequences is me, Mister Officer… I might be fired, I might lose my pension, or I can just sit back and radio in for some backup… I saw some police officers hiding themselves under plywood to prevent getting bricks thrown at their head... It’s not worth getting involved.”
As to the bill Councilman Restler proposed, which would require only the ubiquitous ice cream trucks to be replaced with more environmentally-friendly machinery, Borelli served up this take: “If you’re out there trying to solve drug addiction or ‘police brutality’, quote unquote, or homelessness and poverty, okay, maybe I don’t agree on the solution, but, my God, I can agree that those things are issues that we should be focused on. No one is in danger of dying of Mister Softee… This bill… it literally is like making wrestlers go to Walt Disney World, finding a bunch of kids, and then kicking Mickey in the shins in front of them just to make them cry.”