{"id":353921,"date":"2026-09-22T21:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T21:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/353921\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T21:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T21:20:08","slug":"nyc-bar-association-urges-passage-of-law-banning-central-park-horse-carriages-as-city-council-says-it-expects-to-outlaw-them-next-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/353921\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Bar Association urges passage of law banning Central Park horse carriages as City Council says it \u2018expects\u2019 to outlaw them next month"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York City Bar Association continued<\/a> its decades-long campaign against New York City\u2019s horse-drawn carriages this week, urging the City Council to quickly pass its latest piece of pending legislation to ban them and relieve the equines of their \u201cdangerous and inhumane\u201d job pulling people around Central Park.<\/p>\n

It seems its advocacy will be well-received: A City Council spokesperson told amNewYork the legislative body is \u201cprepared to pass the bill\u201d \u2014 named Romanch\u2019s Law<\/a> after teen tourist Romanch Mahajan who died after being thrown from a carriage when a horse spooked this June \u2014 \u201cat any time.\u201d The Council held a July hearing<\/a> on the bill where Mahajan\u2019s family and animal advocates provided emotional testimony in support of banning the equine cabs and is just waiting on the Mayor\u2019s Office to finish its environmental review of the bill, a typical procedural step, before bringing it to a vote. <\/p>\n

The spokesperson said the Council expects to vote to outlaw the carriages in October.\n<\/p>\n

The City Bar emphasized it would like to see the carriages banned \u201cexpeditiously,\u201d before more injuries \u2014 and legal actions against the city \u2014 occur. The bar noted that, while waiting for the Council to take action on the bill, the city saw \u201cyet another incident\u201d of danger created by the carriages when carriage horse Snowman collapsed on Aug. 29.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dangers caused by horse-drawn carriages are no longer open for discussion,\u201d the City Bar\u2019s Animal Law Committee said in a Monday statement. \u201cLegal cases, as well as numerous witnesses at the recent hearing, have established that the dense city environment is inappropriate for horses; that there is routine failure to comply with regulations; that existing regulations are inadequate; and that existing requirements are not adequately enforced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Romanch\u2019s family has sued the city for $105 million over their son\u2019s death, alleging negligence and a failure to address safety issues by the city. Earlier this week, owners of carriage horse Deniz, who collapsed and died<\/a> after allegedly eating a poisonous plant in Central Park, have threatened<\/a> to sue the city for negligence if the Central Park Conservancy doesn\u2019t ensure the plant and other harmful ones like it are removed.<\/p>\n

Since 1982, roughly 40 carriage horses have died and dozens more have collapsed or become injured on the job, the Manhattan Borough President\u2019s Office reports<\/a>. Dozens of people, both passengers, bystanders, and handlers, have also been injured as a result of horses collapsing or bolting because they were scared by traffic or other city noise.<\/p>\n

Romanch\u2019s Law has more public and political will behind it than any other recent push to ban the carriages. It\u2019s gained the support of over half of the city\u2019s council members, including Council Speaker Julie Menin<\/a>, as well as Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has said he supports the \u201cspirit\u201d of the bill though he\u2019d like to see it include more support for the carriage workers who\u2019d be out of a job.<\/p>\n

The proposed ban \u2014 which would go into effect June 1, 2028 \u2014 has drawn opposition from some carriage drivers and the Transport Workers Union that represents them, who said<\/a> banning the carriages would \u201cstrip blue-collar workers of their jobs and offers nothing in return\u201d when testifying at an emotional July hearing on the bill. A representative for Council Member Chris Marte, who introduced the bill, told amNewYork the Council is working on language to expand protections for workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Previously introduced bills to ban the horse carriages have proposed to replace them with a \u201chorseless electric carriages program,\u201d something the City Bar has expressed support<\/a> for in the past when that was part of the proposed Council legislation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The City Bar has for years staunchly opposed union proposals to simply add additional regulations aimed at improving safety to the carriage industry, saying both that nothing could adequately prevent horses and humans from the unexpected danger from equines bolting and injuring people acting irrationally in fear and that existing safety standards aren\u2019t properly followed \u2013 and haven\u2019t been for years \u2013 meaning it\u2019s unlikely that adding additional measures would prevent horses from collapsing from the work or hurting people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is apparent that the carriage horse industry continues to cause unnecessary danger to both the horses and the public,\u201d the City Bar said. \u201cCarriage horse operations should be banned here before more tragedies occur.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current language of the proposed bill would mandate that the horses not be sold for slaughter or to work in another city\u2019s carriage industry. A spokesperson for Marte\u2019s office said the Council is also working on strengthening language to further protect the horses that would no longer be pulling carriages. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York City Bar Association continued its decades-long campaign against New York City\u2019s horse-drawn carriages this week,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8395,2710,9,31804,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-353921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-horse-carriages","tag-law","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-bar-association","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353921","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=353921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}