The New York City Council on Thursday (the 22nd) voted to ban horse-drawn carriages in Central Park within a two-year window, laying the groundwork for the elimination of an attraction as old as the park itself.
The council’s vote on the bill imposing the ban was a decisive step—though not final—in ending a politically controversial debate over the future of the carriage industry, which some critics view as a form of animal cruelty with no place in a crowded park—while others embrace it as a vestige of old-world charm.
Read more: New York’s traditional tourist attraction could end in 2028
The office of Mayor Zohran Mamdani helped draft the bill, which was approved by 40 to 7, a veto-proof margin. “The mayor will sign this bill, and the Mamdani administration works daily to ensure that we can do so, offering the strongest protections possible for the owners and workers of this industry,” said Sneha Choudhary, Mamdani’s spokesperson.
The legislation stipulates that horse-drawn carriages will not be able to operate in the city starting in June 2028, but includes few concrete details about how the city will handle the economic impact of eliminating the industry for the roughly 200 owners, drivers and grooms whose livelihoods depend on it.
The bill is also vague about what will happen to the 180 carriage horses.
Officials say that the nearly two years between the bill’s passage and the prohibition’s effective date give them time to define these details. Opponents of the ban, including the union representing the owners, are not reassured.
In a letter sent to city officials on Wednesday, lawyers for the Transport Workers Union Local 100 promised to challenge the legislation in court if the council approved it.
Fatal accident prompted change
The bill’s passage was a major victory for animal-welfare advocates who have campaigned for years against carriages. Those efforts, which previously failed to attract substantial political support, gained momentum this summer with the death of Romanch Mahajan, an 18-year-old Indian tourist.
Mahajan was in a carriage with his family when the driver stepped out to take a photo of them. The horse bolted, and the teenager’s mother fell from the carriage. As he tried to help her, he also fell and hit his head on the ground.
Since his death, his family has been actively speaking out in defense of the carriage ban, including with an emotional appeal to council members via video conference from their home in India. On Thursday, several relatives were in the City Council chambers for the vote that banned the industry. They also took steps to file a wrongful-death suit against the city and Con Edison, alleging that stray voltage had unsettled the horse.
Last week, Julie Menin, council chair, and Mamdani had agreed to the legislation.
Gaurav Mahajan, Romanch Mahajan’s uncle, wiped away tears on Thursday as he described the council vote as “incredibly bittersweet.” That won’t bring back his nephew, he said, but “will ensure that no other family goes through what we are going through.”
Economic impact
The union argues that not only are the horses well cared for and heavily regulated, but also that the bill’s provisions to address the economic impact — including the creation of a “horse-drawn-carriage industry transition plan” by April next year — amount to empty promises.
John Samuelsen, international president of the TWU, said on Wednesday that the bill “has no protections” for workers. The industry employs about 150 drivers, several dozen attendants and farriers, according to the union.
“We’re not giving up,” said Onur Altintas, one of the drivers, a 41-year-old father from New Jersey, after the vote. He owns a carriage badge—needed to operate and for which he says he paid more than $300,000—and four horses: Shadow, Trigger, Gix and Starlight. He described the city’s carriage horses as “well-cared-for domestic animals” who “would all go to the slaughterhouse” if the industry were abolished.
Samuelsen reiterated his belief that Menin was using a “manufactured public-safety crisis” to serve real estate interests eager to develop land in Manhattan now occupied by horse stables. Menin denied the accusation.
Samuelsen and other critics repeatedly noted that Mahajan’s death, though tragic, was the first known death of a carriage passenger in Central Park in the history of the industry.
Trump criticizes measure
These critics include President Donald Trump, a New York native, who lamented the council’s decision in a post on social media on Thursday.
“A horse-drawn carriage in New York City is a quintessential New York experience,” Trump wrote. “It’s very sad that, for political reasons, we’ll see this end!”
Opponents of the ban also argued that cyclists at high speeds, including those on e-bikes and pedicabs, pose much greater risks. Since Mahajan’s death in June, a cyclist died after attempting to avoid a collision with a loose dog, and a pedestrian was killed after being struck by a cyclist.
Jim Gennaro, a council member who bills himself as a horseman, argued that provisions for the care of horses to be retired are inadequate and that finding suitable homes for them won’t be easy. He estimated the cost of caring for a horse at $25,000 per year.
“Sometimes it takes months to find a proper lifetime home for a single 26-year-old retired horse,” Gennaro, a Queens Democrat, said in a Wednesday statement.
In their letter to city authorities on Wednesday, the union’s lawyers said they had broad grounds for a court challenge, including the absence of any provision in the bill to compensate those who spent “many thousands of dollars” to buy the city’s carriage badges.
The 68 badges cost owners up to $400,000 each, the union said. If the bill were to pass, the lawyers wrote, the union would seek a court order blocking it “before the ink dries.”
Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city’s Law Department, said authorities were “reviewing the letter.”
“We are confident that the legislation is supported by law and we will be prepared to defend it,” he added.
Menin said on Wednesday that setting the ban’s effective date two years from now gives city officials enough time to help drivers and other industry workers find new jobs, and that she is committed to working with the Mamdani administration to achieve that goal.
A mayoral spokesperson said the administration “has been working on a detailed plan for the transition of the workforce and the industry, and we have begun discussing compensation for badge owners.”
But Altintas scoffed.
“Will they find a new job for a 60-year-old?” he asked. “It doesn’t make sense, because that person has invested their past and their future in that business. That person won’t be able to do it. You know what they’ll do? They’ll kill themselves.”
This article was originally published in The New York Times.
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