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The city is waging chair warfare on the Main.

One of the street’s most famous shops, Vieille Europe, has put some plastic chairs out on the sidewalk for many summers. They’re tucked under its awning, so passersby can hide from the sun, or more likely the rain, this summer.

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But city inspectors have recently walloped the gourmet grocery with two $475 tickets, for having illegal terrasses. The store’s normally easygoing co-owner, Paulo Raimundo, refuses to back down — he’s appealed the tickets and left his six red chairs out in defiance, while waging a website campaign to save his seats.

“Let them keep ticketing me,” he says, “It’s a principle I’m willing to pay for. We’re not a night club serving drinks, we don’t have service outside. We’re just a grocery that closes at 6 p.m. — and our chairs are a nice community gesture.”

Vieille Europe is the Main’s best-known landmark after Schwartz’s, a smorgasbord of a place overflowing with exotic teas, biscuits, cheeses, spices and more — a slice of the Main as it once was. Its six flimsy outdoor chairs are meant for all — whether customers or not.