Carriage horse drivers and medallion owners gathered at the entrance of Central Park on Friday to deliver a clear message to City Council Speaker Julie Menin: Legislation she intends to see passed next week to end their industry is \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christina Hansen, TWU Local 100<\/a>\u2018s shop steward for Central Park\u2019s carriage horse industry, slammed Menin and Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Oct. 16 for reaching a deal earlier this week on outlawing the industry<\/a>. With 30 co-sponsors out of 51 council members, the legislation is all but assured to pass the full council in a vote scheduled for Oct. 22 before going to Mamdani\u2019s desk for his signature.<\/p>\n The measure was named Romanch\u2019s Law<\/a> by its sponsor, City Council Member Christopher Marte (D-Manhattan), after 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan was killed after being thrown from a horse carriage<\/a> in June. While Mahajan was the first human to be killed during a horse carriage ride in Central Park over the industry\u2019s 168 years of operation, his death came after years of incidents in which horses bolted around the park or into traffic or collapsed on the job.<\/p>\n In addition to banning horse carriage operations in the park and ending the issuance of their licenses, the council amended the legislation to contain language around establishing a \u201cworkforce transition program\u201d to assist industry workers in finding other employment. It also says the city must \u201cconsider\u201d compensating owners for the value of their businesses, licenses, and equipment.<\/p>\n But Hansen, who has driven a carriage in the city herself for 14 years, charged that the bill\u2019s safeguards are wholly inadequate. She added that the legislation also does little to protect soon-to-be out-of-work horses either.<\/p>\n \u201cThis bill does not do\u00a0what the speaker promised her council members and her constituents and the people of New York, and the workers and owners here in this business that it would do,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cIt does not protect the horses. It\u2019s bad for horses. It does not protect the workers. It\u2019s bad for workers. It does not protect the medallion owners. It\u2019s bad for them. It destroys people and horses\u2019 lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Carriage horse union decries \u2018no protection for workers\u2019<\/p>\n Alexander Kemp, Local 100\u2019s executive vice president, contended the bill has zero guaranteed protections for workers. He railed against its proposal for establishing a workforce transition program, which the bill says must at minimum include referrals for carriage horse industry workers to jobs at government agencies such as the MTA as well as the provision of training and career fairs.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no protection for the workers in this bill,\u201d Kemp said. \u201cI challenge every single person who signed onto the bill to show me where exactly it says that there are guaranteed protections to transition this industry into worker jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Hansen and Kemp also blasted Menin for standing with animal rights groups \u2014 such as PETA and New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets (NYCLASS), which have led the fight to ban carriage horses for many years. They claimed the groups use aggressive tactics to push their agenda and spread falsehoods about carriage drivers and owners mistreating their equines.<\/p>\n In response, Menin spokesperson Jack Lobel insisted that the bill ensures \u201cmeaningful protections\u201d for carriage industry workers. He also stressed that Local 100 was part of the conversations that shaped the version of the legislation the council is passing.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough thoughtful conversations with labor and other stakeholders, the council developed a framework to ensure better economic opportunities for these New Yorkers,\u201d Lobel said in a statement. \u201cAs the Administration implements the plan, Speaker Menin\u2019s office will remain engaged in the transition process, including through a new joint working group that she has invited TWU and the Administration to join.\u201d<\/p>\n One carriage horse driver at the event, Ahmet Bilici, who has been operating a hansom cab for 23 years, said he spent his life savings on his medallion. He likened Menin and Mamdani to the mobsters for passing legislation that will take away his medallion without guaranteed compensation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe\u00a0mayor and the speaker coming like mafia, like a gangster, and they come and take my business, my home,\u201d Bilici said. \u201cPut me out of\u00a0business. Put me out in the streets. Make me homeless.\u201d<\/p>\n Hansen said the carriage workers are weighing whether to bring a lawsuit if the council goes through with passing Romanch\u2019s Law next week.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWell, there\u2019s all kinds of defects in this bill,\u201d she said. \u201cObviously, there\u2019s no lawsuits until the city actually does something.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carriage horse drivers and medallion owners gathered at the entrance of Central Park on Friday to deliver a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[101801,104315,138162,37503,22925,9,24,63,104360,112849,134,136,135,8824],"class_list":["post-375673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-alexander-kemp","tag-carriage-horse-ban","tag-christine-hansen","tag-city-council-speaker-julie-menin","tag-mayor-zohran-mamdani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-romanch-mahajan","tag-romanchu2019s-law","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-twu-local-100"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375673","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=375673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}