Judge finds city had no legal right to yank license for Trump’s Bronx golf course

NEW YORK — A Manhattan decide dominated Friday there was no “lawful basis” for previous Mayor Bill de Blasio’s choice to terminate the city’s contract with Trump Golf One-way links at Ferry Point Park in the Bronx next the Jan. 6 insurrection.

De Blasio administration officers notified the Trump Firm on Jan. 15, 2021, that the metropolis was pulling the group’s operating license for the 18-hole study course in the Throgs Neck area of the Bronx.

They referenced the “actions of Donald J. Trump and Donald Trump Jr.” that “incited” the attack on the Capitol as properly as the Skilled Golfers’ Association’s termination of the 2022 PGA Championship at the Trump Bedminster golfing class in New Jersey as causes for revoking the Ferry Point license.

They argued the then-president and his companies would no for a longer time be capable to attract “very first-course qualified championship golf tournaments this sort of as people sponsored by the PGA” to Ferry Point mainly because it would be linked with a “violent insurrection towards the federal govt.”

The Trump Corporation sued to block the tried shutdown in June 2021, countering that there was not any contractual breach.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Debra James agreed, composing in her 18-page conclusion that Ferry Level experienced no obligation to host PGA-amount tournaments. The city’s claim that it did “lacks any lawful basis,” James observed.

A Trump Business spokesperson thanked the court for “its effectively-reasoned choice based on legislation and information.”

“As we have stated because the beginning, the city’s attempts to terminate our extensive time period license arrangement to operate Trump Golf Backlinks at Ferry Position Park ended up very little much more than a political vendetta. Previous Mayor Invoice de Blasio employed his position to weaponize the New York Town Section of Parks and Recreation and the New York Metropolis Law Department all in an exertion to progress his individual partisan agenda, score political factors and interfere with cost-free enterprise,” the spokesperson mentioned in a statement.

De Blasio did not return messages in search of comment.

A city Regulation Office spokesperson explained in a statement, “Any one keeping a metropolis concession is held to a superior regular. We are disappointed in the court’s decision, and we are examining our legal choices.”