15 million visitors a year<\/a>.<\/p>\nWaiting on nearly every strip of sidewalk and subway exit in the area are people wearing brightly colored vests, including some that read \u201cAuthorized ticket seller.\u201d Many of the vendors hold ticket seller licenses, issued by the city\u2019s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, but Councilman Christopher Marte, who sponsored the bill, said even those with credentials have misled unwitting tourists. The root of the issue, Mr. Marte said, is that vendors have lied to customers about the true itinerary of their tours: First, a bus ride to a Midtown pier, where many of their boats are docked, and then a ride around the New York waterways, but never a stop at Liberty Island or Ellis Island.<\/p>\n
Mr. Marte said that for many of the independent contract workers, the $50 fines that the city can impose have become \u201cthe cost of doing business\u201d and that the boat operators they sell for have faced few or no consequences for their conduct. The bill he sponsored would also allow the city to fine the companies that employ the ticket sellers, starting at $500 per violation.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, individual sellers have gotten small fines while the companies making money off these scams have been able to keep doing business,\u201d Mr. Marte said.<\/p>\n
Many tourists realize something is amiss only after they have paid and are told they will be boarding a bus and not a boat. That\u2019s what happened in mid-September to Chris Hill, 60, and her husband, Tim Hill, 61, from Wittman, Ariz.<\/p>\n
As soon as the couple turned onto Battery Place, they were approached by two men in green vests who held brochures advertising different trips. Mr. Hill said the ticket sellers had told them the trips would not allow passengers to get off at the islands but added that neither would any other company.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey kept saying, \u2018Nobody can get off,\u2019\u201d Mr. Hill said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know if that option was even available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within minutes, he pulled out his credit card, and the vendor charged him $109.98. He and his wife were then taken to a nearby corner where, he said, about 50 other tourists were waiting, and where they were told a bus would pick them up and take them to Pier 78.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018What bus?\u2019\u201d Mr. Hill said. \u201c\u2018What do you mean? We\u2019re already here.\u2019 By that time it was too late \u2014 we already paid. There was no way back now.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the Hills boarded a boat and saw several New York sights from the water, \u201cWe didn\u2019t get to go where we wanted to go,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Two days later, after doing some research, they weaved through groups of third-party sellers and purchased two tickets from Statue City Cruises for a total of $52.<\/p>\n
They later learned their first set of tickets had come from Big City Tourism.<\/p>\n
In an interview, Kareem Holmes, the founder of Big City, said that his vendors were trained to be transparent with customers and that he had taken several measures to ensure that they were operating according to law. He said he relies on a team of about 50 independent contractors who work at the Battery.<\/p>\n
He said before any customer boards the bus to the pier, he said, he has a staff member make an announcement: \u201cHas anyone lied to you? You guys know that we do not disembark on Liberty or Ellis Island. We stay in the water. If anyone tells you anything besides that, you can go get your refund.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that Big City and the other tour operators are in frequent communication about holding dishonest sellers accountable. When any of the owners receives a complaint about a seller, the group as a whole has taken decisive action, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree strikes, you\u2019re out,\u201d Mr. Holmes said. \u201cThey can no longer sell for any of those companies.\u201d<\/p>\n
His trips, he said, have a number of qualities that may be preferable to tourists, and are not a sham product. The tours are shorter in duration and feature views of the Brooklyn Bridge along with music, drinks and guides.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great product that we have created,\u201d said Mr. Holmes, a former ticket seller. \u201cWe\u2019re all native New Yorkers. We don\u2019t bombard them with the history of everything. We give them the insights on the dos and don\u2019ts of New York City \u2014 what\u2019s hot and what\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s crucial, Mr. Holmes said, to have a presence near the Battery, where tourists are known to flock. He said the sellers often direct customers to Statue City Cruises, if they ask for it.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Statue City Cruises said in a statement that it supports the legislation and the strengthening of \u201con-the-ground enforcement actions\u201d to \u201censure that everyone is able to safely and affordably reach this iconic destination.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a recent Saturday, on nearby State Street, vendors in purple, blue and yellow vests made their best pitches to passers-by. Alimame Suwareh, who said he had sold tours on and off for seven years, was among those working the crowd.<\/p>\n
Mr. Suwareh, 39, who works on commission for several operators, said he gets about $20 for every $50 ticket he sells. The work has provided much-needed income for his wife and his 11-year-old son, he said.<\/p>\n
Over the years, Mr. Suwareh, originally from Gambia, said, he has picked up phrases in a number of languages, including Spanish, Arabic and Korean.<\/p>\n
\u201cMen piao \u2014 that means \u2018ticket\u2019 in Chinese,\u201d he said, smiling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love to interact with strangers,\u201d he added. \u201cSometimes you come and you don\u2019t sell, but I get to meet the customers from all over the world, so it\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the tip of Lower Manhattan, dozens of vendors approach wandering tourists hawking tickets for boat rides to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[135042,81199,83327,95561,11291,83326,17073,135043,101882,79267,9,24,56,63,65,64,23589,10921],"class_list":["post-363944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-battery-park-manhattan","tag-boats-and-boating","tag-brad-m","tag-christopher","tag-frauds-and-swindling","tag-hoylman","tag-law-and-legislation","tag-liberty-island-nyc","tag-marte","tag-monuments-and-memorials-structures","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-statue-of-liberty","tag-travel-and-vacations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}