This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

Fire up the grill and turn up the dancehall, Nick Perry’s jumping up from Assembly member to Ambassador to Jamaica. The Brooklynite will be heading back to the island nation of his birth as the top representative for his adopted country of the United States, after the Senate confirmed his appointment. That’ll cap off nearly 30 years in the lower chamber, leaving that ginned-up COVID conspiracy about his public health bill in the past – and an induction into the Cricket Hall of Fame in his future. 

For the New Yorkers who are spending this Saint Patrick's Day yearning to take home a strawberry frozen margarita instead of nursing a pint of beer at their local bar: don’t hold your breath. New Yorkers lawmakers have opted to keep the legalization of to-go cocktails out of this year’s budget. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope the overwhelmingly popular proposal won’t be revived outside of budget negotiations. But Stefan Kalogridis’ group, the New York State Liquor Store Association, will certainly be celebrating this temporary victory – and ramping up efforts to kill the proposal for good. 

After reports surfaced that the city had yet to disperse the bulk of the $4.4 million it raised to help victims of the deadly January fire in the Bronx, Adams this week came back announcing an additional $3 million in direct cash assistance to those affected by the fire. The mayor’s intervention was surely welcome news to Eileen Torres, executive director at BronxWorks, the nonprofit contracted to distribute the desperately needed funds to the families of the 17 victims and hundreds of other residents affected by the blaze.

The past week proved the honeymoon is definitely over for the first female governor in state history. Rangers fans booed her at the Garden the other day. New polling shows the GOP might have a chance this November and legislators are hating on her policy agenda to boot. Good thing that the seemingly-ubiquitous Hochul knows a thing or two about hustling. Otherwise, she’d have to speed up even more to keep cutting five-figure checks to reimburse taxpayers for all those rides on state aircraft. 

He once played a can-do governor on television – but a damning audit by the state comptroller shows how the aggrieved culture warrior bungled COVID-19 in nursing homes while misleading the public about the death toll. Cuomo isn’t talking about that part of his record as he re-enters public life. Instead, he’s preaching to a choir of people including the Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr. (no stranger to controversy) who are manning the emerging exploratory campaign to somehow restore the good name of the disgraced former governor.

When it comes to inter-state cooperation, New York is kind of like the Mob. Once you’re in partnership with the Empire State, you’re in for life. So it’s not surprising that Hochul and state Attorney General Letitia James are putting the screws to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy for trying to pull out of the bistate Waterfront Commission, which regulates hiring on the shared waterfront and has been used to crack down on organized crime. Hochul and James are suing New Jersey over the move, and even if the decision lands in Murphy’s favor, nobody wants a Supreme Court fight against their neighbor.