The Supreme Court will let New Jersey unilaterally exit the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, a bistate police agency created to crack down on corruption immortalized in the Marlon Brando movie “On The Waterfront.”

The unanimous decision, issued Tuesday and written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, effectively ends the small agency the two states created in 1953 to go after the mob and corrupt labor practices at the New York-New Jersey container port.

New Jersey — supported by a powerful dockworkers union and the shipping industry — has long sought to reform or leave the commission, arguing the agency holds up hiring and adds bureaucracy. New York sued to block New Jersey’s exit, arguing the agency is still needed because corruption still exists and that the terms of their 70-year-old deal didn’t allow one state to quit without the other’s permission.

The high court sided with New Jersey.

During oral arguments in March, justices were clearly willing to allow New Jersey to exit the deal; they were only trying to figure out how to do so without creating precedent that might disrupt other multistate deals, like those setting boundaries and setting water rights.

In a short, 11-page ruling, Kavanaugh distinguishes this deal, known as a compact, from such water rights cases and ruled “it would not make much sense to conclude that each State implicitly conferred on the other a perpetual veto of withdrawal” in this deal.

After the oral arguments, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, had their staffs start meeting to figure out how to maintain ongoing investigations, enforcement actions and operations in anticipated of a ruling in New Jersey’s favor.