Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at the bill to ban carriage horses from Central Park that the City Council is scheduled to vote on tomorrow.
A ban on carriage horses has been talked about for years. The pressure increased during the summer with the death of Romanch Mahajan, an 18-year-old tourist from India who had been riding in a carriage with his family.
Tomorrow the City Council could take the first step toward actually banning the carriages — in mid-2028.
The bill that the Council will vote on has opponents, including John Samuelsen, the international president of Transit Workers Union Local 100, which represents carriage owners and drivers. He said that the drivers, who earn between $65,000 and $85,000 a year, would “welcome more regulation” but not a ban, because there “has never been one credible instance of abuse in the Central Park carriage industry.”
He also accused the City Council speaker, Julie Menin, of advancing the bill to push “her contrived scheme to end the industry” and clear the way to tearing down the horses’ stables for real estate development. Menin denied that when I spoke with her on Tuesday. Here are excerpts from the conversation.
Why is this the moment to tackle that issue?
Well, I felt very strongly when I came in as speaker that we needed to take some action because, basically, this has been a perennial issue. This has been an issue that has stymied many City Councils over the years. And as commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs in the de Blasio administration, I remember the issue well — we licensed horse carriage drivers and horse carriages.
When the Central Park Conservancy last year came out and said that they wanted a ban in the park, that certainly to me was a factor.
But then when Romanch tragically lost his life, I really felt that it was a tipping point in terms of the need to do something. I mean, it’s callous to not take any action.
Why can’t the city just add new regulations? The T.W.U., which represents the drivers, says they want more inspections.
I think that it just reached a point where to just keep on adding and adding and adding more and more regulations — at what point is enough enough? To me, enough was enough, and we needed to take more concrete and clear action.
So how will the bill take care of the drivers? What specifically is going to happen with them to find other jobs for them?
First of all, I said at our hearing in July that we were going to take the time to beef up the worker protection language.
Basically, now there is an industry transition process embedded in the bill itself that requires the mayor to establish a transition plan covering the carriage drivers, the stable workers and the medallion owners. It requires city agencies basically to do everything from assistance in accessing jobs, creating actual referrals to jobs and on-the-job training, and career counseling.
I think it’s really important that we transition the workers to jobs that they want to do.
One of the things that I announced I was going to do is create a transition committee that works with the T.W.U., works with the administration, works with the workers, to make sure that these things are happening. That’s why the end date for the bill is June of 2028, to give the city the time that we need to do a transition. We’re not saying this bill goes into effect immediately, because we wouldn’t be able to do the requisite transition that is needed.
Why couldn’t the city ban the carriage horses, but say that electric carriages would be allowed in the park and make it easy for the drivers to switch?
There are members of the Council who were not comfortable with the electric cars. They don’t want to add electric cars into the park.
I think instead of the electric cars, one potential good avenue is looking at special pedicabs.
We have a problem with the pedicab industry. We have hundreds and hundreds of unlicensed pedicabs telling tourists they’re charging X dollars when they end up charging a vastly different sum. It is wildly inappropriate.
One of the things that I discussed with the Conservancy was, is there the possibility to create a unique pedicab that is deemed to be the legitimate legal pedicab that is permitted in the park? And one of the things I’m really interested in looking at is, can we give the horse carriage drivers first dibs, so that we recognize the years that the horse carriage drivers have given to this industry?
What about the way the horses are kept? Are the conditions inherently abusive?
Look, the Council passed various laws previously that were focused on making sure that the horses were not going out in very hot weather and strengthening requirements for stable conditions and veterinary examinations and horse age limits.
But we have seen some horses that have collapsed. Some horses have died. I mean, there are numerous, numerous complaints about some of the treatment of the horses.
Are things any worse for them than for, say, police horses?
I can’t really comment on the treatment of those horses. The focus has been on the horse carriage industry in Central Park, because 42 million people are coming to the park every year. You’ve got so many people in a very tightly confined space where these horses are operating. This led to numerous times where the horses have become spooked and broken free.
And that’s created a very unsafe environment the horses and for pedestrians, which is exactly why the Central Park Conservancy last year said that they favor a ban of the horse carriage industry in the park.
The other thing I would say is these horses in Central Park are pulling these large carriages with people in them, and they’re doing it for hours on end.
So is banning the horses about animal rights, or is it about something else? John Samuelsen of the T.W.U. says it’s really about real estate. (He says to goal is clear the land on the West Side where the horses are stabled, to make way for real estate development.)
No, this is an animal welfare issue. In fact, when I became speaker, I designated the first animal welfare caucus that the City Council has ever had. This was really the tough issue, from what we heard from animal rights groups and what we heard from New Yorkers. And particularly after Romanch’s death, it became a real flashpoint.
And so this is an issue of animal welfare. It’s also an issue of public safety in the park.
Do you expect the bill to pass on Thursday?
I do. There is wide support within the City Council to do this.
A veto-proof majority?
I believe we will have absolutely a veto-proof majority.
Do you expect the mayor to sign this bill?
I think it is an important bill, and I certainly hope that he will sign it.
Have you talked to him about it?
I have not talked to him directly about the horse carriage bill.
Weather
Another sunny day is ahead with temperatures nearing 63 and gusty winds. Tonight will be partly cloudy with a low around 48.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Nov. 1 (All Saints’ Day).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“This just adds to the confidence level that we will be ready, God forbid.” — Teresa Rizzuto, the general manager of Kennedy International Airport, after a disaster relief drill for a simulated plane crash there.
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METROPOLITAN diary
Praying mantis
Dear Diary:
It was one of those humid July days that take everything out of you. I was walking along East 57th Street when I noticed a praying mantis on a dusty tree with battered bark.
I had only seen perhaps two or three mantises in my life, and I couldn’t fathom how this one had wound up on a tree on a busy Upper East Side street.
I saw an older woman walking down the block. She noticed me staring at the tree.
Was I OK? she asked.
“I am now,” I said.
— Paul Aaronson
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The post A Vote Tomorrow Could Ban Horse Carriages in Central Park appeared first on New York Times.
