This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

Stewart’s Shops swept the dairy awards at the state fair this year, taking home the gold in the “Best Milk,” “Best Flavored Milk,” “Best Chocolate Ice Cream” and “Best Open Class Ice Cream” (for Mint Cookie Crumble) categories. The upstate gas station and dairy company led by Gary Dake also gave the governor an excuse to namecheck her heritage again. “Coming from a family of dairy farmers in Ireland, I am committed to continuing our historic support for New York’s dairy producers and processors,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

David Weinraub’s lobbying firm Brown & Weinraub topped the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government’s list of top lobbyists for 2022, raking in over $18 million and increasing their client list by almost 60%. Lobbyists everywhere can share in the celebration: Overall spending on the colorful industry hit record highs driven largely by clients in the health care sector.

Let it be heard. The Islamic call to prayer will soon ring freely in New York City under new legal guidelines. Going forward, mosques will be able to project the Adhan free from the necessity of a special permit – a reminder that “our faith is equally important as everyone else's, and giving our children a little taste of back home here in this great city,” according to Mohamed Bahi, the mayor’s senior liaison to the Muslim community who helped usher in the change.

Erik Bottcher may have just earned himself a spot on Madison Square Garden’s facial recognition-powered blacklist. The local City Council member backed a five-year operating permit renewal for Madison Square Garden – half the length of the Garden’s previous operating permit, and far short of owner James Dolan’s ask to operate in perpetuity. The permit is likely to get a final stamp of approval from the full City Council later this month.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz is now facing an ethics complaint filed by a former girlfriend, who previously filed a police report accusing Poloncarz of physical abuse,  and claiming that he awarded a $60,000 grant to a Buffalo Italian cultural center, whose leaders included a second woman he was dating. Poloncarz denies all of the allegations and said the grant was awarded by a bipartisan committee he chairs, and declined to say if he dated the second woman.

A small victory amid the state’s continued bad news in trying to roll out legal cannabis got snatched away by a judge, who cited misrepresentation on the part of the Office of Cannabis Management as the reason. After a state judge issued a temporary injunction to stop the state’s cannabis licensing, he permitted 30 applicants to move ahead. But turns out the Office of Cannabis Management, of which Chris Alexander is the executive director, wasn’t entirely truthful about how close each applicant was to approval. And Alexander is dealt yet another blow in the state’s much-criticized pot rollout.