Proposal to ban Central Park horse carriages voted down by key NYC council committee

NEW YORK -- Central Park’s iconic horse-drawn carriages volition trot on, for now.

A proposal to ban the fashionable tourer attractions that person been fixtures successful Central Park for much than 150 years failed to wide a cardinal New York City Council committee connected Friday.

The council’s Committee connected Health voted against sending the connection to the afloat assembly for its information pursuing a packed hearing.

The Transport Workers Union of America, which represents equine carriage workers, applauded the sheet for lasting up for their members.

“They are hardworking immigrants who instrumentality bully attraction of their horses, and person consistently been attacked and slandered by monied interests who attraction thing astir carnal welfare,” John Samuelsen, the union’s president, said successful a statement.

But carnal rights advocates who person agelong called for ending the industry, derided the ballot arsenic a “sham” arsenic they vowed to proceed their fight.

The statement implicit the fashionable tourer gully was revived implicit the summertime erstwhile a carriage equine collapsed and died adjacent its stables, with videos and photos of the animal’s assemblage successful a metropolis thoroughfare circulating wide online.

Critics accidental carriage horses tin get easy spooked connected metropolis streets, starring to accidents and injuries. They besides accidental the horses are overworked and unrecorded successful inadequate stables, and that their drivers flaunt metropolis regulations, including leaving down piles of equine manure.

“Horses person collapsed, adjacent dropped dormant connected the streets recently. Multiple horses person had convulsive runaway spooking incidents, crashing into vehicles, sending New Yorkers to the hospital, and astir trampling others,” New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets, oregon NYCLASS, said in a Friday statement.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said metropolis lawmakers ignored the opinions of the “vast bulk of New Yorkers” who privation the manufacture ended. The outgoing Democrat threw his support down the projected prohibition successful caller months and issued an enforcement order stepping up enforcement of the industry,

“It’s a shame that the City Council has erstwhile again refused to travel the volition of our citizens, portion simultaneously endangering pedestrians, drivers, and animals alike,” Adams said in a statement.

The council’s Democratic enactment has agelong resisted calls to clasp a nationalist proceeding and ballot connected the proposal, which calls for winding down the manufacture arsenic aboriginal arsenic adjacent summer.

Friday’s ballot was alternatively instigated by the bill’s sponsor, who invoked a procedural regularisation to unit a committee vote.

“This was 1 of the astir undemocratic displays I person ever witnessed successful the New York City Council,” Council Member Robert Holden, an outgoing Queens Democrat, said successful a connection aft his bid was denied. “The Council could not attraction little what New Yorkers think.”

Benjamin Fang-Estrada, a spokesperson for City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, suggested Holden simply failed to bash the “legislative enactment of gathering support” among his colleagues.

“The Council recognizes that this is simply a hard and affectional issue, and immoderate way guardant requires a sponsor bringing each parties unneurotic successful a constructive way,” helium said successful an emailed statement.

The Central Park Conservancy, the influential nonprofit that manages the 843-acre (341-hectare) park, besides came retired successful enactment of an manufacture ban, citing its outsized interaction connected nationalist information and roadworthy infrastructure successful the progressively crowded park.

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