{"id":297303,"date":"2026-07-16T03:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T03:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/297303\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T03:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T03:06:13","slug":"nyc-council-hears-testimony-on-horse-carriages-proposed-ban-at-emotional-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/297303\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Council hears testimony on horse carriages proposed ban at emotional hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of the 18-year-old boy killed by a runaway carriage horse last month pleaded with the New York City Council Wednesday to ban the horse-drawn park tours, as lawmakers considered a bill that would wind down the industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot properly describe to you the true fear inside that carriage,\u201d Deepak Mahajan, father of Romanch Mahajan, told the City Council over a video link during the marathon hearing. He sat beside his wife, Priya Mahajan, who held a photo of their dead son.<\/p>\n

Romanch, his parents and his little brother were visiting the Big Apple from India last month when the family took a horse-drawn carriage ride in Central Park. The horse bolted after the driver stepped out of the carriage, trying to take the family\u2019s photo.<\/p>\n

In the ensuing chaos, Romanch\u2019s mother fell from the carriage, and the teen went after her, fatally hitting his head in the process \u2014 the first recorded human fatality in Gotham\u2019s carriage-horse industry.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Obtained by Daily News<\/p>\n

The aftermath of an out-of-control horse-drawn carriage is pictured in Central Park on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (Obtained by Daily News)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was shaking, it was speeding, there was no one holding the reins, and we could do nothing but hold on to each other and scream,\u201d Deepak said Wednesday of the ill-fated carriage ride.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife fell. Romanch tried to help his mother, and he too fell,\u201d the grieving father continued as his wife wiped her eyes. \u201cHe hit his head on the ground, and he did not move \u2014 he never moved again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept shouting his name, but he did not move,\u201d Deepak said. \u201cHe took his last breath in his mother\u2019s arms while his 11-year-old brother and I stood watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have not unpacked Romanch\u2019s luggage from that trip,\u201d he added. \u201cWe are shattered. Our whole family is shattered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was not an unpredictable accident,\u201d Deepak said. \u201cThis was a safety violation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA photo of Romanch Mahajan hangs from the lectern among news microphones Monday, June 22, 2026, in Central Park. (Evan Simko-Bednarski\u00a0\/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

The emotional recounting came at the start of a day-long hearing during which the City Council\u2019s Health Committee heard testimony on a bill that would end all horse-drawn carriage rides by June 2028 \u2014 a legislative effort to which the Mahajans have lent their late son\u2019s name. The hearing, which started at 10 a.m., was still going at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Romanch\u2019s Law, which has seen a swell of Council support in recent weeks, is a rehash of a bill formerly known as Ryder\u2019s Law, named after a carriage horse that collapsed and died in 2022.<\/p>\n

If made law, it would immediately end the issuance of new medallions for carriage horses, and end the industry entirely in the summer of 2028.<\/p>\n

Sovia Thurkal, Romanch\u2019s aunt, broke down in tears Wednesday while testifying in person before the Council.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease remember his name,\u201d she said, her voice breaking. \u201cRemember the life he lived and the love he gave to everyone around him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMake sure he\u2019s the last person to die from this industry,\u201d she sobbed.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe aftermath of an out-of-control horse-drawn carriage is pictured in Central Park on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (Obtained by Daily News)<\/p>\n

Previous efforts to wind down the carriage horse industry have died on the vine.<\/p>\n

Ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio unsuccessfully tried to do it before leaving office at the end of 2021.<\/p>\n

A 2025 attempt to force a hearing on a ban failed after only one member of the Health Committee, Brooklyn Councilman Simcha Felder, voted in favor of it. Four committee members voted against that effort and two abstained. Two others \u2014 including now-Council Speaker Julie Menin \u2014 didn\u2019t show up to vote.<\/p>\n

But Romanch Mahajan\u2019s tragic death appears to have turned the tide, with Menin announcing her support late Tuesday<\/a>. The speaker\u2019s eleventh-hour nod came amid a groundswell of support. As of Wednesday evening, 26 of the Council\u2019s 51 members had signed onto the bill as co-sponsors.<\/p>\n

\"CityCity Council Speaker Julie Menin is pictured during a hearing on horse carriages Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at New York City Hall. Menin threw her support behind the effort to ban carriage horses a day earlier. In November, Menin did not show up for a vote on a similar measure.(Evan Simko-Bednarski \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

But former Council member Bob Holden, who authored the original Ryder\u2019s Law, took lawmakers to task for the delay Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy original bill would have banned horse-drawn carriages in New York City on June 1 of this year,\u201d Holden said. \u201cRomanch died on June 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat should be chilling,\u201d Holden said. \u201cThat is the cost of four years of obstruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council member James Gennaro (D-Queens), who authored a competing bill which would require stricter driver training and provisions like hitching posts \u2014 but would allow carriage rides to continue \u2014 was the primary dissenting voice at Wednesday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n

Gennaro grilled representatives from the Department of Health and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection on whether enough had been done to enforce regulations currently in place.<\/p>\n

A hearing on Gennaro\u2019s alternative bill has not been scheduled.<\/p>\n

\"TWUTWU Local 100 President John Chiarello testifies before the City Council against a bill that would end carriage horse rides in New York City on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at City Hall. The union represents 150 drivers and owners. (Evan Simko-Bednarski \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

The law would also require that current New York City carriage horses not be sold into slaughter or used in another carriage horse business elsewhere, plus mandates the creation of a jobs program for the roughly 150 drivers who would be put out of work \u2014 though the program\u2019s details are still slim.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a horse person,\u201d testified Christina Hansen, a carriage driver and shop steward with the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents some 150 carriage owners and drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, horse capital of the world,\u201d she said. \u201cThis bill is telling me that I can\u2019t go work with my horse in another place to pull a horse and carriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about the [NYPD] Mounted Unit? Could I get a job with them in the stable? Or riding as a police officer?\u201d she asked. \u201cThat is what I\u2019m skilled at. I don\u2019t need to be told to work in a hotel or something like that. I am a horse person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CarlosCarlos Ortiz, a deputy commissioner at the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, left, and Corinne Schiff, a deputy commissioner at the Health Department, testify in favor of a horse carriage ban during a City Council hearing at City Hall on Wednesday, July 15, 2026. (Evan Simko-Bednarski \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Pete Donohue, a spokesman for the union, called on the Council to reconsider its support for a ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust seven months ago, this same committee rejected this exact same bill, then called Ryder\u2019s Law,\u201d he said. \u201cSo what changed?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in 167 years of carriage rides being a popular feature of Central Park, a passenger fatality occurred,\u201d Donohue said. \u201cAre you considering banning walking, biking, scooters, taxi cabs, buses or the subway? Of course not \u2014 because that defies all logic and common sense. So does banning carriage horses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Health Committee took no vote on Wednesday on whether or not to advance Romanch\u2019s Law to the full Council. A vote on the bill is expected to take place next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of the 18-year-old boy killed by a runaway carriage horse last month pleaded with the New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[85,267,9,24,55,54,264,10,12,56],"class_list":["post-297303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-county","tag-new-york-news","tag-news","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}