Get off your high horse, Councilman!
Manhattan pol Erik Bottcher, a city councilman who has been championing legislation to ban horse-drawn carriages in the Big Apple, is being called out as a hypocrite for previously honoring fashion designer Dennis Basso — known as the “king of fur” and “furrier to the stars.”
“Enough is enough!” Botcher proclaimed at a recent press conference after a Central Park carriage horse named Lady dropped dead on 11th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen.
“No more horses suffering on New York City streets,” he said. “It’s an outrage that this is happening in our city. How long are we going to look the other way while living beings drag tourist carriages through gridlock Midtown traffic.”
But Dec. 6, 2023, Bottcher wrote a proclamation honoring Basso.
Bottcher personally delivered the proclamation to Basso when he visited the furrier’s flagship store on East 57th Street. A photo of the smiling councilman posing with a beaming Basso, who is holding the proclamation, and Martha Stewart appeared in Guild Magazine at the time.
Basso’s high-end store and collections sell fur coats and jackets from a variety of skinned animals and even rodents including sable, lynx, mink, chinchilla, blue fox, racoon, broadtail and shearling.
One of his natural lynx coats with fur is listed at $275,000, and a Lynx coat with hood is $250,000.
A Barguzin eyelash sable coat with raccoon is priced at $120,000.
The Post called Basso’s store, and a worker there confirmed it only sells real fur.
Bottcher’s proclamation lauded Basso’s treatment and sale of fur.
“Dennis Basso has been one of New York’s most acclaimed fashion designers for the past 40 years, hailed by both private and celebrity clients … bringing a new perspective to designing fur,” reads the proclamation, obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information Law request with the council.
“Mr. Basso pioneered the method of treating fur like a fluid fabric, resulting in lighter and bolder designs,” it says.
“His work catapulted him into social prominence, setting him up for a successful career in an important industry for this city.”
Basso has dressed a wide range of famous clients, including President Trump’s first wife Ivana Trump, Elizabeth Taylor, Zsa, Zsa Gabor, Jennifer Lopez, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Meryl Streep and Gabrielle Union.
But Transport Workers Union President John Samuelsen, who reps horse-carriage operators and opposes a ban on the industry , said Bottcher is a “horse’s ass” and a hypocrite.
“Unfathomable hypocrisy by Erik Bottcher who seemingly has no issue tearing the skin and fur off animals to make fur coats for the rich, yet endlessly spreads lies about the Central Park Carriages,” Samuelsen said in a statement.
“This reeks of a hidden agenda.
“If it wasn’t evident before, Bottcher isn’t a genuine animal rights activist. He’s definitely a horse’s ass though,” he said.
Veteran horse-carriage driver Christina Hansen called Bottcher “a hypocrite,” too.
Why support the fur industry in his district but not the horse carriage industry that’s been there for decades, she said.
“Our horses aren’t being harvested for their skins,” said Hansen, who is the TWU’s shop steward for horse-carriage riders.
“It’s hypocritical. The animal-rights activists who stand behind him at these press conference against horse carriages would throw red paint at him if they knew he supported the fur industry.”
The TWU also said the carriage horses are well-treated and that a preliminary results from the necropsy indicated the 15-year-old horse Lady had a small tumor in her adrenal gland that likely caused an aortic rupture.
Bottcher declined Post requests for comment.
Animal-rights groups such as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Friends of Animals have launched anti-fur campaigns targeting the furrier trade, fashion designers and retail stores that peddle the skins. Some fashion designers have dropped fur, and even Basso sells less expensive faux fur for the masses, as well as real fur for the well-to-do.
Proposed legislation has been kicking around in the City Council that would ban the sale of fur apparel, but opposition has bottled it up in committee. There are 150 fur retailers and manufacturers in the city employing more than 1,100 people, according to the trade group Fur NYC.
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