In what appeared to be a coordinated crackdown on the proliferation of food vendors — many of them disabled veterans — outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, police officers swooped down on Fifth Avenue Wednesday and began issuing hefty summonses. They ordered at least one vendor to shut down his cart.

In all, officers wrote seven summonses to vendors who had “positioned their carts beyond the curb line,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.

The legal status of the vendors is murky. The city used to make money by selling vending rights to two hot-dog carts outside the museum, on Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, but in 2007, a disabled veteran, Dan Rossi, arrived, saying a 19th-century law enabled him to operate freely in some areas that are off limits to others. Soon, other veteran-operated carts joined his.

While the city does not contest the basic right of disabled veterans to operate in front of the museum, it says there is room for only one vendor, because of regulations regarding the location of the carts and because bus and taxi boarding zones must be kept clear.

Two weeks ago, officers began handing out summonses, in most cases saying the carts were too far from the curb. Vendors said they were in a bind: If they were near the curb, they would be ticketed for obstructing the bus and taxi stops, and if they were farther out on the sidewalk, they would be ticketed for being too far from the curb.

The crackdown on Wednesday appeared to be the most coordinated action against the vendors to date. By 10 a.m. Wednesday, six of nine vendors outside the museum had been issued tickets for fines of up to $1,000.

“They’re saying this is a sidewalk, and we’re saying it’s a plaza,” said Leo Morris Jr., 62, a disabled Vietnam War veteran. “People couldn’t sit around in the street like this. It has to be a plaza. If this is a plaza, then as a disabled veteran, I have a right to be here.”

He said he had been issued six tickets in the last month. After five, Mr. Morris said, the $1,000 fine becomes mandatory.

Jerry Cruz, 40, a veteran of the current Iraq war, said he had received two tickets, one for being too far from the curb and one for having the wrong kind of food permit — a citation he said he had not received in the past.

Mr. Cruz said he was ordered to shut down his cart.

“I usually get here at 10 o’clock,” he said. “I get here at 5 minutes to 10, and they’re already harassing us.”

Harold Holzer, a museum spokesman, said in a statement: “As visitors have been reporting to us by phone, and in letters and e-mails, they are finding it increasingly difficult to enter the building, and almost impossible to exit at the end of the day. The situation poses not only difficulty but danger.”

But some tourists and locals continued to patronize the carts, even as the police drove away.

Lisa Magnarella, 40, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., sat with her daughter, Sarah, 9, eating hot dogs on the steps of the museum.

“We didn’t have to go into the Met and pay high prices for lunch,” Ms. Magnarella said. “So I think they should be able to be there. They’re just Americans like you and me, trying to make a living.”