The New York City Council voted 40-7 on Thursday to phase out Central Park's horse-drawn carriages, ending an attraction nearly as old as the park itself.
The big picture: The bill stops the issuance of new carriage-horse licenses immediately and outlaws the industry entirely by the summer of 2028, with a 2027 plan to move workers and owners out of the trade.
- Two council members abstained. The measure passed with a veto-proof majority and Mayor Zohran Mamdani's office said he will sign it.
The backstory: The bill was called Ryder's Law, after a horse that collapsed and died in Midtown in 2022. It was renamed in June for Romanch Mahajan, an 18-year-old tourist from India who died jumping from a bolting carriage.
- "Please do not let Romanch become just the name of a law," his aunt Sovi Thukral said at a City Hall rally. "Remember the young life behind it."
The other side: Transport Workers Union Local 100 rallied outside City Hall hours before the vote and says it will challenge the law's constitutionality in federal court the minute the ink dries.
- TWU president John Samuelsen said the retraining language is hollow: "There's nothing concrete at all. The language says consideration will be given."
By the numbers: Operators say the trade runs more than 100,000 rides a year. Drivers and medallion owners, many of them immigrant family businesses, have invested millions in licenses, horses and carriages with no dollars set aside to buy them out.
Zoom in: The law also bars owners from selling their horses to another carriage operation or for slaughter. Council Speaker Julie Menin said compensation will be up to the administration.
Why it matters: Animal welfare groups have chased this ban for more than two decades and finally won it after a death. Hundreds of jobs now hinge on a transition plan the city has yet to fund.
