Horse Carriage Ban Stuck in the Stall

By TATYANA BELLAMY-WALKER

Animal rights activists urged New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito on Thursday to support a bill protecting horses from what they termed abusive practices in the local carriage industry.

“We are demanding that this [bill] happens before the end of the year,” said Edita Birnkrant, Executive Director of NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets), an animal advocacy group. “Horses would no longer be allowed to be worked in Times Square,  Rockefeller Center, Columbus Circle and other chaotic, traffic-condensed areas in Manhattan.”

Birnkrant added, “How can anyone say that horses should be pulling carriages in 2017?”

In 2010, before assuming the role of speaker, then-Council Member Mark-Viverito introduced a bill to replace horse-drawn carriages with electric cars.“Many major cities across the world have already banned horse carriages,” she said, holding a “horses without carriages international sign,” during a NYCLASS protest in 2011. “We should not be the last to do so as well – we should be at the forefront of the changes in this industry.”

Nearly seven years later, however – the bill’s passage now seems bleak.

Gotham Gazette Editor Ben Max recently quoted Mark-Viverito via Twitter saying the council has “No plan to do anything on horse carriages.”

Long-time efforts to ban horse-carriages faltered under the de Blasio administration despite the mayor having run for his first term in 2013 on a platform of removing them from city streets.

 Birnkrant said she was disappointed by his inaction but dodged further questions on the matter.

Representatives of NYCLASS said the bill is an “evolving process,” which they say was introduced to the city’s council. NYCLASS, however, was not on the agenda for Thursday’s stated meeting. They declined to answer multiple interview requests on the number of city council members that support it.

“We have sponsors on the bill and plenty of votes in the council. We are confident it is going to pass,” said Chris Coffey, a consult for NYCLASS.  “We have been super transparent.”

Craig Sheldon, a volunteer of Friends of New York City Carriage Horses, appeared to be the only person opposing the rally.

“It’s a secret bill that we haven’t seen,” he added. “They are trying to put hard working New Yorkers out business based on emotions not facts or evidence.”