Last month, while accompanying her 9-year-old daughter's Girl Scout troop to watch the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, Kelly Conlon, 44, was denied admittance despite having a ticket after being flagged by the venue's facial recognition system.
“They said my firm was on the attorney exclusion list and escorted me out,” Conlon told the media.
Conlon states that she was forced to spend 90 minutes wandering around outside in the rain while her daughter caught the show with the rest of her troop inside.
James Dolan, the CEO of Madison Square Garden, barred anybody who works for any legal firm that has a lawsuit pending against any of his businesses, which include the Knicks, Rangers, Radio City, MSG, and other restaurants. Conlon was caught up in this Big Brother-Esque crackdown by Dolan.
According to Conlon, after scanning her ticket outside the venue, the incident occurred “about 20 seconds” after she entered the prestigious Art Deco auditorium and passed through the metal detector.
“I heard them say, ‘Woman with long dark hair and gray scarf.’ I kept walking because no one stopped me,” said Conlon, who was then asked to produce ID before being escorted out.
Visitors are informed by a sign inside Radio City that facial recognition technology using "biometric identifier information" is employed as a security precaution to protect both visitors and personnel.
New Jersey legal firm Davis, Saperstein & Salomon, for which Conlon works as a lawyer, is engaged in continuing personal injury litigation against a restaurant owned by MSG Entertainment, the company behind Radio City Music Hall and other famous city theatres.
Conlon is not connected to any matters involving MSG Entertainment and does not practice law in New York. However, the theatre appears to be off-limits to her and the other lawyers at her business.
It appears that MSG Entertainment has updated its database with images of the dozens of workers at her law firm. The company's face recognition technology, as described in a 2018 New York Times story, employs an algorithm to compare camera-captured images to a database of previously taken pictures.
Although allegedly designed to keep out people like terrorists, Big Brother technology is now reportedly being used to settle petty grudges.
Conlon, who felt humiliated, claimed she had not received her ticket refund.
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