Keeping the mob off the waterfront: U.S. Supreme Court should stop New Jersey from killing docks watchdog

Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News
·2 min read
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Having not met for seven months due to New Jersey’s contempt of a U.S. Supreme Court order, the bistate Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor had a lot of business to take care of last week, as the agency barred a slew of longshoremen from working on the docks for associating with known organized crime figures. Yet still Jersey is contending before the highest court in the land that the agency is no longer needed to fight the mob.

The newest mob-tied guy to be bounced by New York Commissioner Paul Weinstein and New Jersey Commissioner Jennifer Davenport (whose appointment was stalled for months by Trenton) dates from November, a fellow who hung out with an associate of the Colombo crime family.

Then there was an October case of a longshoreman tied to a member of the Genovese crime family. Left over from September were cases of three men linked to associates of the Sicilian faction of the Gambino crime family, the Genovese crime family and one tagged with both the Lucchese and the Genovese crime families.

Finally, there were two bounced longshoremen whose cases go back six months, to June. One fellow was too close to the Lucchese crime family while the other had ties to the Lucchese and DeCavalcante crime families. These folks should have been tossed half a year ago, but the agency couldn’t move against them until now because New Jersey left Davenport’s seat empty since May.

New York is suing its supposed cross-Hudson partner before the Supreme Court because New Jersey is trying to unilaterally shut down the commission. The case is fully briefed and on Friday the justices held a closed-door conference on the state versus state suit, with perhaps an order being issued today.

We would hope that the learned justices recognize that the joint agreement from 1953 can’t be dissolved by one state deciding that the mob is no longer a problem. Doing so would let the gangsters win and take over the docks, like they had in the bad old days.