From what I've read, BV are "legal" in the Adirondacks. The official NY state "bear resistant canister" page lists the technical requirements for compliance, and you can see a picture of a BearVault if you look carefully at the page. This being said, still very easy to find sources saying that they were unsafe. Looks like the (in)famous Yellow Yellow forced them to add an additional button to prevent bears from breaking through. Interesting read