Boro seeks background checks on local vendors Law would affect those who sell products from cars, trucks BY MICHAEL ACKER Staff Writer SAYREVILLE - Vendors who sell goods from motor vehicles, such as ice cream trucks, may soon have to undergo background checks for prior offenses in order to set up in the borough. The police department has recommended that the governing body adopt an ordinance that would require the checks and ensure that vendors wear identification while working in Sayreville, according to Mayor Kennedy O'Brien. He said borough police officials network with other police departments at numerous seminars each year, and come back with ideas and recommendations such as this one in order "to be proactive, rather than reactive." "We never had a complaint," O'Brien said of the motor vehicle-based vendors. "This is being proactively prudent." The Borough Council will consider a new ordinance, which would require ice cream trucks and other merchants who operate out of motor vehicles to register with the borough. The merchants would have to be fingerprinted and have a background check done before being allowed to sell their products in the borough. Council President Thomas Pollando said during a May 29 meeting that the governing body would hold off on introducing the ordinance that night so that Borough Attorney Brian Hak could change the language to exempt longtime vendors from the requirements. "I'm going to grandfather in a couple of hot-dog vendors who have been in town for a long time," Pollando told the Suburban. Councilman Dan Buchanan said the ordinance is about ensuring the safety of children. "I believe this is a very good ordinance," Buchanan said. "It's going to protect our children." Pollando said the borough follows state regulations that require the business operating the vehicle to have a license to operate. This ordinance will require that each vendor who works for the business be registered as well. "You can't have enough safety today with the [cases of] missing children that happen, the child pornography and pedophiles," Pollando said. "You see it on 'Dateline' all the time. My concern is protecting the children as much as possible. "If a person has a truck driving around, what makes anybody think he can't lure a kid into the truck," he added. "… If they have nothing to hide, then there is nothing to worry about."