He Stayed Afloat Selling $3 Tacos. Now He Faces $2,000 in Fines.

Like thousands of New Yorkers, Lucio González lost his job in the pandemic. As an undocumented immigrant, he did not qualify for unemployment benefits or stimulus checks, so he began selling beef barbacoa tacos on Fordham Road in the Bronx.

His work was unsanctioned: The city places strict limits on street vending. But the authorities had eased up on enforcement while the city was shut down, and Mr. González, 54, has eked out a living, one $3 taco at a time. Vendors in similar straits now line busy strips all over the city, filling its parks, plazas and boardwalks, weaving through traffic with coolers, and selling whatever they can — bottled water and mangoes, air-conditioners and knockoff sneakers.

The hustle has been a lifeline for thousands, many of them immigrants, but it has also drawn complaints. In recent weeks, as New York tries to embark on its recovery, city inspectors have been out in force, accompanied by police officers, handing out hefty fines and telling people to pack up their wares.

The crackdown on vendors coincides with an aggressive campaign to clean up the homeless encampments that proliferated during the pandemic, as the city tries to promote business and lure back tourists.

Mr. González was hit this summer with more than $2,000 in fines for violations including operating without a food-vending permit and being stationed too close to a storefront. “They’re not letting us work anymore,” he said in Spanish.

A spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which took over inspecting duties from the police this year, said the enforcement effort was a response to a surge in complaints. The spokeswoman, Abigail Lootens, said the city had focused on “problematic” areas, including Fordham Road in the Bronx and Main Street in Flushing, Queens.

The complaints, she said, have come from business owners, Business Improvement Districts, elected officials and others, who point to street congestion, noise and the unfair competition the vendors pose to brick-and-mortar businesses and to licensed vendors.

The new vendors say they understand the city has an obligation to maintain order, but they have nowhere else to turn. José Luis Martínez said he lost his job as a dessert chef at a restaurant near Columbia University in Manhattan at the outset of the pandemic, and it had been impossible to find another job, because of his immigration status. He had continued selling shaved ice on Fordham Road even after a sweep there in July — which he managed to evade — because of his four children, he said.

“They’re your engine, what makes you go out and run the risk,” said Mr. Martínez, 38, as two of his children, Citleli, 12, and Erick, 9, sat in the shade of his umbrella. It is not uncommon to see vendors with their children; many cannot afford child care.

Business owners say they are sympathetic to the vendors’ plight, but that they too are struggling to recover from the pandemic. “Business was slow,” said Ash Saadi, a longtime employee at Wireless 300, a tiny cellphone accessory shop on Fordham Road. “And then this.”

He went on: “They sell everything we’ve got — skin protectors,…