With well over half the state's total voting population concentrated in NYC and Metro areas, my guess is the politicians in control are happily waving bye-bye to those "horrid merchants of death" that have "infected" their state since..1816! ??
Losses and hardships to a hand full of families, or even the tax base of an upstate district hardly matters to them, and won't matter to their next reelection run. So long as the people they are pandering to keep putting them in office, it seems little else matters...
The surprising thing to me is, that they are.. letting .. them move, rather than trying to have them burned at the stake. (metaphorically speaking, of course).