NEW YORK (AP) — New York City lawmakers are considering banning horse-drawn carriages from Central Park, ending their more than 150-year run as an iconic and long-running tourist attraction, after decades of opposition from animal welfare activists and the death of a teenage tourist last spring.
The City Council is expected to approve a bill next week that would end the rides by 2028. Three consecutive mayors had called for an end to the horse-drawn carriage rides over safety concerns, but lawmakers ultimately pulled back the reins.
A spokesperson for Julie Menin, council president, confirmed the incoming vote and said the proposal had enough support to pass. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office said he had reached an agreement with the president on the legislation.
“The horse-drawn carriage industry is coming to an end in New York,” Mamdani said in a social media post.
Teenager’s death reignites debate over carriage rides
The latest campaign for a ban began in June, when Romanch Mahajan, 18, visiting the city from India, died after jumping from a runaway horse-drawn carriage during a ride with family members. His death, which appears to be the first death in a horse-drawn carriage accident since their introduction to Central Park, has reignited debate over whether horse-drawn carriages, a romantic throwback to the city’s past, have any place in a modern metropolis.
Mahajan’s family showed up at City Hall, in person and via video conference from India, pleading with the city to finally end the rides.
“We’re broken, our whole family is broken. The pain doesn’t go away,” his father, Deepak Mahajan, told city council members via video call during a hearing on the bill last summer, saying his son jumped out of the car to try to help his mother, who was thrown from her seat after the horse ran away. “Every morning we wake up thinking about nothing but the loss of our son.”
For decades, animal welfare advocates and other critics have decried the transportation industry, arguing that horses should not carry tourists through busy streets and Central Park while having to contend with heavy traffic and gawking passersby. In the past, horses have collapsed, been startled and run away, hitting cars or other objects, with each accident leading to new calls for a ban.
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“The tragic and preventable death of 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan made it clear that the status quo is no longer acceptable. Horse-drawn carriages have long been a part of New York City’s history, but in an increasingly crowded Central Park, this tradition has become a growing public safety issue,” Menin said in a statement.
The industry and its supporters have long viewed rides as a way for visitors to experience the New York they know from classic movies and television.
Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse danced in one of the wagons of “The Band Wagon”. Robert Redford and Jane Fonda rode one in “Barefoot in the Park.” Macaulay Culkin escaped from bandits in a horse-drawn carriage in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”
“Taking a horse-drawn carriage ride in New York is one of the most iconic things to do in New York and people from all over the world know us and travel to New York to take a horse-drawn carriage ride in New York,” longtime horse-drawn carriage driver Conor McHugh told the Council earlier this year.
Mayors faced challenges in efforts to ban rides
Efforts to shut down the industry have been met with resistance from unions and their influential supporters, often resulting in tedious political fights that have seen mayors give up in the face of nagging concerns about unemployment among horse-drawn carriage drivers and what to do with horses if they can no longer work.
Transport Workers International Union President John Samuelsen said the Council’s bill would provide “no meaningful economic relief to workers” and that Menin “used the tragic death of a tourist to create a public safety crisis.”
“This is shameful political opportunism, and Zohran should not just accept it, especially when immigrant families’ livelihoods are destroyed. This whole situation is reprehensible,” he said in a statement.
The proposal as written would require the mayor’s office to develop a workforce transition plan for drivers and would include a measure that would allow the city to consider some form of compensation for industry workers. Carriage owners could not sell their horses for slaughter, according to the text of the bill, which requires horses to be disposed of in a “humane” manner.
“I think we have a civic responsibility to ensure that we leave no one behind,” Mamdani told reporters Wednesday.
The mayor’s predecessor, Eric Adams, called for an end to the industry in the final days of his administration, but the proposal went nowhere. Previous mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to eliminate the rides on his first day in office, but abandoned the crusade after strong union opposition and a media campaign involving actor Liam Neeson.
Over the years, the city has imposed various safety rules around the industry, including requiring horses to have at least five weeks of vacation per year outside of city limits with daily access to pasture. The horses are inspected by a veterinarian twice a year and the maximum age they can work is 26, according to city regulations. And they don’t work when it’s over 89 degrees.
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