It has been a long time coming, but the stars are finally aligning to ban New York City’s horse carriage industry.
Last week Mayor Adams called on the City Council to pass pending legislation to phase out horse carriages by next June and signed an executive order directing city agencies to wind down the industry during this transition. All of the other candidates for mayor have now joined him, as has the Central Park Conservancy, where these carriages currently operate.
Indeed, according to a recent poll, more than 70% of New Yorkers favor such a ban. So this is no longer a question of whether this is going to happen; it is a question of when. And the time is now.
What is still needed to get this done? First and foremost, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has to meet the moment, as Mayor Adams has. A recent series of horrific incidents involving these horses dying or running wild has made this a public safety imperative that can no longer be ignored. Moreover, we have all witnessed how inhumane it is to continue to subject these magnificent animals to carriage life and how dangerous it is to the public to face out-of-control horse carriages.
The speaker’s only response thus far has been to say she will “let the legislative process run its course.” But she controls the legislative process, and she just tried to rushed through rule changes to give her even more power to move bills of her liking.
She has let this horse carriage legislation languish without even a hearing for more than a year, even though 20 Council members originally co-sponsored the bill — just six shy of passage already — and a majority is now poised to pass it if the speaker allows the legislation to advance. That is why the mayor issued a “message of necessity” calling on Speaker Adams to move the bill.
It is time for the lame-duck speaker to take the lead and get this legislation passed before year’s end, instead of leaving it to her successor to do.
What’s holding the speaker back? Perhaps she doesn’t want to subject herself to the same million-dollar smear campaign now being waged against the mayor and me by Transport Workers Union International President John Samuelsen simply because we’ve had the courage and common sense to call for an end to horse carriages in our congested city.
Samuelsen claims TWU is representing the “workers” in this industry, yet admittedly, its role is to advocate on behalf of the industry: there is no union contract, no collective bargaining agreement, and apparently no benefits for these workers, who are typically classified as independent contractors, allowing the owners to avoid any such obligations. Yet TWU somehow calls this union representation.
The mayor has a head and a heart. He has offered a soft landing to those in this industry once it ceases. But TWU has rejected out of hand everything we have offered to help this industry’s workers and owners in the event of a legislative ban that otherwise provides no reparations for them.
For example, we have offered to find alternative city employment for the drivers that assures them higher wages, subject to collective bargaining agreements that give them health and other benefits they don’t have now. We have offered to compensate owners for the value of their licenses, which sold on average for around $75,000 over the past three years.
We have offered to pursue electric carriages as an alternative to horse-drawn carriages if owners and drivers prefer to stay in a related industry. We have even offered to explore opening a stable and creating a nature center in Central Park where families and children can commune with some of these horses. But Samuelsen and TWU won’t listen to reason.
As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. The well is now running dry for this industry from a bygone era. Time to face reality. We will be a safer city, a more humane city, if we end the horse carriage industry now.
Mastro is the first deputy mayor of New York City and a long-time attorney. Nearly a decade ago, he represented NYCLASS, an animal rights group, in a First Amendment case but hasn’t represented it since.
