NEWSDAY.COM lewsed., NEW YORK CITY WEDNESDAY, OCT. 4, 2006 | CITY EDITION 50¢ Vendors not sold on city’s ticketing "BY JUSTIN ROCKET SILVERMAN amNEWYORK oe a thunderstorm beac to soak Grace Zhang's curbside _ portrait- painting business, she moved | her easel and supplies under a store awning to wait out the ' rain. A police officer told her that street vendors are not al- lowed to be so close to store- fronts and then handed Zhang a ticket that could end up cost- ing her $1,000, she said yester- ge po- lice told me to move, but still got a ticket,” said the Chinese immigrant, 56. “It seems they are looking for any reason to ticket us. I came to this country to find the American Dream. In- stead I got a red ticket.” Zhang and hundreds of other street vendors staged a boister- ous protest yesterday outside the downtown office of the En- vironmental Control Board, which handles most street ven- dor violations. The vendors called for an end to what they said is police harassment and an end to $1,000 fines, which were put in place earlier this year for multiple violations. In Zhang’s case, she’s been fined before for being too close to a storefront, and some of those tickets have been dis- missed, she said. Tan Michaels, a spokesman for the Environmental Control Board, said the board neither sets the rates nor issues the tickets. Michaels pointed out that the maximum fine amounts are set by the City Council, and that the $1,000 maximum is only levied against street ven- dors for the sixth offense. The first offense is just $50, and goes up to $100 for the second and $250 for the third. A report released yesterday by the Street Vendor Project, an advocacy group, found that the city’s estimated 12,500 street vendors pay an average of $433, a significant portion of their annual income of $7,500, in fines. Violations range from vending too close to a store- front or too far from the curb, vending on a restricted street or not having a vending license clearly visible. “A vendor slips his license into his pocket when he uses the rest room, and then forgets to put it back around his neck, and ends up with a $1,000 tick- et,” said Sean Basinski of the Street Vendor Project.