James Dolan no longer has as many friends at the top

James Dolan believes he is invincible—and why wouldn’t he? The owner of Madison Square Garden, the Knicks, the Rangers and the corporate entity that operates Radio City Musical Hall and the Beacon Theatre, he is long accustomed to having his way in New York. The son of the man who founded Cablevision, Dolan has always behaved like someone who has no regard for consequence.

Now, for the first time, Dolan might have met his match. His obsession with using facial-recognition technology to ban anyone from his properties who has, in some way, run afoul of him has brought scrutiny from the state attorney general’s office and the Democratic legislators who represent Midtown. Dogged reporting on Dolan’s practices, which first showed up in the excellent Substack House of Strauss, has now crossed over from the sports universe to the city’s mainstream news media, where Dolan is no longer merely a cantankerous heir ruining the Knicks yet again.

With his company’s share price plummeting, Dolan is now a mogul ranting on Fox 5 about how he’ll happily welcome the state yanking his liquor license over the use of facial recognition. (“What we’re gonna do, right, [is] we’re going to pick a night, maybe a Rangers game, and we’re gonna shut down all the liquor and alcohol in the building.”)

Dolan said he can put up photos of Sharif Kabir, the chief executive of the State Liquor Authority, and tell fans to call him

“People say, ‘You’re so sensitive; you shouldn’t defend yourself.’ It’s like something out of The Godfather—like, ‘It’s only business,’ ” Dolan said. But “the Garden has to defend itself.”

Dolan has used facial recognition to bar lawyers from Madison Square Garden and Radio City because they work for firms engaged in litigation against his company, whether or not they are personally involved. A lawyer was thrown out of Radio City in December while awaiting a Rockettes performance with her daughter’s Girl Scout troop.

Dolan apparently believes he can win a public relations war against politicians, including Rep. Jerry Na- dler and state Sen. Brad HoylmanSigal, who are pressuring him to end his use of facial recognition to capriciously punish paying customers. In his Fox 5 interview, Dolan lashed out at the Democratic politicians for supporting bail reform, which many moderates and conservatives have blamed for a crime spike. His hope, plainly, is that the public will side with him over the meddling liberals.

Not the sympathetic party

If Dolan believes it will be easy— that disgruntled Knicks fans will flock to his side and New Yorkers in general will view him as the sympathetic party—he is mistaken. In part, that is because his tantrums are wearying. And he has never been popular in the first place. What matters more, though, is the political reality, one Dolan fails to ascertain. Since 1982 Madison Square Garden has received a full tax break, worth $43 million per year, that can be repealed if muscled through the state Legislature.

When Republicans controlled the state Senate and Sheldon Silver, an avid Rangers fan and Dolan ally, was Assembly speaker, a bill repealing the tax abatement was dead on arrival. Dolan always had the ear of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo and Silver are both gone, and progressive Democrats are ascendant in the state Senate. Carl Heastie, the speaker who replaced Silver, has no special relationship with Dolan.

Dolan and his family spent more than $200,000 to help elect Kathy Hochul. Is Hochul Dolan’s trump card? The governor has said little about the controversy so far.

But it’s no longer impossible that the Democrats in the Legislature would advance an abatement-re- peal bill and dare Hochul to veto it.

There are other matters for Dolan to consider. Madison Square Garden’s local special permit is set to expire this year and will need approval from the overwhelmingly Democratic City Council. Hochul has continued to push a $7 billion redevelopment of Penn Station that taps funds from real estate development in the area, though opponents are growing more restive.

The next time Dolan opens his mouth, he should remember all the ways that city and state government make his business possible. His friends in politics are fast disappearing.

Quick takes

● This will be a crucial second year for Mayor Eric Adams, who must prove to his critics he can somehow lower the city’s overall crime rate.

● The Hector LaSalle standoff continues. If Hochul doesn’t send a new nominee to the state Senate— and she never pursues, or wins, legal action—the Court of Appeals will have six, not seven, judges indefinitely. ■

Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.