A New Brunswick, N.J., restaurateur won a $1.535 million jury verdict Wednesday in his suit claiming the city’s mayor wrongfully blocked a liquor license for a planned sports bar because he objected to the name: “Buck Foston’s.”

The federal court jury, after a nine-day trial, found that Mayor James Cahill had used his influence to deny the license because he considered the name vulgar and that the city’s action violated Lawrence Blatterfein’s First Amendment rights.