What were the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars?

The sound of an ice cream truck coming down the street makes the child in all of us reach for our wallets. But in 1980s Scotland, it was safer to skip the frozen treat. Otherwise, you might get caught up in the deadly Glasgow Ice Cream Wars.

The dessert-related violence came at a time when Scotland was caught up in the unprecedented drug crisis that spawned what is now known as the Trainspotting generation. Gangs had realized that the mobility and innocent look of ice cream trucks made them the perfect front for selling drugs and stolen goods.

As other groups caught on to the trick, the sprinkle-covered freezers on wheels became tanks in a citywide turf war.

“Mafia-style warfare broke out when two brothers decided to muscle in on an ice cream monopoly controlled by two families,” read the Glasgow Herald in 1979, in a story detailing how two brothers, both ice cream men, had attacked a rival ice cream van with bricks and planks of wood.

The site of these battles was the Glasgow housing schemes (similar to housing projects in the U.S.), which were mostly built in the 1960s to replace the old and dangerous tenement housing.

The dairy-fueled battles in Scotland eventually subsided as grocery stores became more common and the popularity of food trucks declined. But the trend of hawking drugs under the guise of friendly neighborhood ice cream sellers has continued to this day, especially in New York.