City Council Members Marte & Powers Propose to Stop Tourist Ferry Ticket Scams

Call it “the crackdown in Battery Park.”

That’s the hope anyway, in the wake of legislation announced by Council Members Christopher Marte and Keith Powers that, they and others hope, will regulate and greatly reduce the ticket scammers that have infested Battery Park for years.

Persons wishing to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, which only Statue City Cruises can offer, are especially targeted, though all visitors to Battery Park are seen as potential marks for someone. Mayor Adams visited the ferry terminal in early April, but nothing seemed to change.

Said a spokesperson for City Cruises after the visit, which Adams seemed to treat more as a campaign stop, posing for selfies with many of the surprised patrons and even some of the illegal ticket vendors.

Days after the visit, Statue City Cruises said nothing had changed. And a spokesperson said the company felt Adams had “dropped the ball.”

“Being totally honest, the situation in Battery Park is the worst it has ever been,” said a spokesperson for City Cruises in early April after the mayor’s visit. “Two Saturdays ago, we had 81 vendors in the park, an all-time record. Ferry business on the NYC side is down, but NJ side is up nearly 10 percent.

“It’s a shame for NYC, because the City is losing $2 million to $3 million annually since the city gets a small piece of each ticket and with less people going through Battery Park, its less revenue for NYC. A couple weeks ago, we saw a kid vendor in the park... they are now at the SI Ferry Terminal and following tourists in as they buy coffee inside and selling them tickets while they wait.”

The legislation now being introduced is trying to change that. Besides Council Members Marte and Powers, Boro President Mark Levine was on hand, as were Manhattan Community Board 1 Chair, Tammy Meltzer, her colleague Zach Boomer, and others.

Weather for the event was cool and humid, with rain approaching. The legislation Marte and Powers are proposing has one important goal: “shifting regulatory responsibility from individual ticket sellers to the businesses that employ or profit from them... to hold bad actors accountable at the top of the chain—where decisions about training, sales practices, and marketing are actually made.”

To achieve this, their proposal has four distinct components, all of them well-observed:

● Require business licenses for ticket seller operators, not just individual sellers.

● Establish stricter penalties and allow for the revocation of licenses for repeat violations.

● Prohibit aggressive and deceptive vending tactics.

● Mandate clear identification for legitimate sellers to prevent impersonation of government or official services.

“Every year, tourists visiting Lower Manhattan are misled and overcharged by scam ticket sellers pretending to offer official Statue of Liberty tours or other attractions,” said clean shaven Council Member Marte.

“These scams hurt everyone—families lose their hard-earned money, legitimate small businesses lose customers, and the city loses credibility. This isn’t just about protecting consumers—it’s about rebuilding trust in our city and making sure that public spaces like Battery Park are safe, welcoming, and honest.”

“The scams and fraud that we’re seeing in Battery Park have serious consequences for the economy in New York City,” said Council Member Keith Powers. “Tourism is a crucial industry for our city, and if tourists can’t trust they won’t be scammed at every turn, they won’t spend their dollars here. Visitors and New Yorkers alike deserve to be protected, and to be able to trust that enforcement of bad actors doesn’t stop at the water’s edge.”

“For decades, scam tickets have been stealing money from tourists every single day. This important legislation gets to the root of the issue and will rein in the companies that profit from scamming tourists,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.. “Buying tickets to our city’s cultural landmarks shouldn’t be a gamble, and I’m grateful to Council Members Powers and Marte for taking this crucial step to protect buyers.”

Next came Community Board Chair 1 Tammy Meltzer, one of the undersung, clarion voices of downtown civility and rectitude. Wearing dark glasses, a windbreakers and dark floral-themed blouse, Meltzer took to the podium like an old-time revival preacher, which in some ways, she was the voice on.“The wild west of tour boat ticket selling absolutely can not continue,” she began. “A perfect storm of ineffective regulation and big profits has paved the way for rampant consumer fraud, blocked access to The Battery, and a growing environment of aggression, assaults and even stabbings in the scramble for turf and tourist dollars. The Statue of Liberty is the gateway and a symbol of our country, one that we are blessed to be the steward of and when tourists come to see it they should be met with an inspiring welcome, not illegal coercion, extortion, and fraud. We must hold the tour boat operators accountable for illegal actions (not just the blatantly visible ones) and this legislation is designed to do just that. Thank you to Council Members Marte and Powers for answering our community’s call and taking decisive action to end this chaos.”

Straus News recently exposed the depth of the problem—and related issues.

The illegal vendors of counterfeit goods who frequently infest the area—their goal is to trap the unwary in a web of deceit.

That they do so not by their mere presence, but active and often aggressive cajolery has earned them the enmity that led to the gathering of solons and community members that was scheduled for 9 a.m. for Wednesday May 21, just steps south of the Bowling Green subway station.

This location was well chosen for it’s here that much, though not all, of the most egregious harassment occurs. There are two reasons for this.

First because of the subway exit and its steady flow of potential victims; the same reasoning holds true at the South Ferry and Whitehall Street stations, the latter of which shares a plaza with the Staten Island Ferry terminal, another rich source of marks for the ticket scammers.

The second reason is that ongoing Battery Park Resiliency Project has turned part of the park into a construction zone, especially Battery Place and its intersection with State Street—whose plaza is also home to the Bowling Green subway station and the pedestrian path into Battery Park and Castle Clinton, where one can buy legitimate ferry tickets to the Statue of Liberty.