Patricia N. Saffran, NYC Council, No Valid Reason to Ban the Central Park Horse Drawn Carriages

With no proof whatsoever, the NYC Council is saying that carriage rides are dangerous, their main reason for wanting to ban them. In reality, horse drawn carriages are the  safest form of transportation in the City with the lowest accident rate. Further, the Council members hope that the public won’t notice the lack of logic in their aggressive propaganda to ban the carriage rides. They’re attempting to convince the public that their ban, with a provision to retire the horses and prevent them from ever working again, is kindly.

The truth is, with the proposed ban, the City Council is being cruel to the carriage horses, leaving them adrift without their main caregivers/owners to whom the horses are attached. They’re also being cruel to the carriage drivers, to take away their actual professions while being incapable of offering equine related job substitutes. Many drivers/owners such as Atakan Aktay have invested a great deal of money in their horses and equipment, not to mention their medallions. The City Council has made no mention of the drivers’ losses that they would create with a ban.

The City Council now has 30 sponsors for the proposed bill, Intro 943, Romanch’s Law, a majority to pass the bill to ban the Central Park carriage horses. The bill is named after Romanch Mahajan, who died after falling out of a carriage in Central Park when the horse Samson spooked and bolted. His death, the first in 167 years, is hardly a reason to ban the entire industry, yet there are still more reasons not to ban the historic horse drawn carriages.

As to Romanch’s accidental death, it turns out that the horse Samson may have been electrocuted from stray voltage at the Cherry Hill area of Central Park, now being investigated by ConEd. Stable owner Cornelius Byrne testified about Samson being electrocuted during the ‘show trail’ Hearing held by the Health Committee for the bill on July 15, 2026.
 
Now, at several weeks after the Hearing, so far no investigative report has been issued by the police or by ConEd itself.City Council Speaker Julie Menin and many of her colleagues on the City Council never heard Cornelius Byrne’s statement, but they undoubtedly heard about it later. They had walked out in what looked like a hissy fit, feigning anger after the three hour rant from the anti-carriage horse contingent and the Mahajan family.
 
Romanch’s family may have been asked to promote the ban. Those City Council members refused to hear the carriage drivers, their equine veterinarian, and supporters. The council members could have stayed and listened, at least pretending to be interested in what the carriage drivers had to say about losing their livlihood and the fate of their horses.

Speaker Menin’s and the Council members’ gauche, impolite display, leaving the chamber and refusing to hear the carriage drivers, has prompted this author to send Speaker Menin, for her edification, a copy of ‘Just Good Manners:  A Quintessential Guide to Courtesy, Charm, Grace, and Decorum’ by William Hanson, with a note to share with other Council members.

In addition to the City Council’s accusations of the industry being unsafe, they’ve also made allegations of abuse of the carriage horses. These allegations and a court case of such went nowhere, as noticed by the WSJ, who also observed that e-bikers are far more dangerous. An equine veterinarian said about the parks, “The main craziness is not banning the e-bikes and motorized pedicabs!”

After the City Council’s Health Committee Hearing on the bill, they picked up more Council member sponsors after they heard that the Romanch death is likely due to ConEd and stray voltage. So far no official report has been issued by the  police or other investigation by ConEd itself, which seems quite tardy.
 
Apparently, the new sponsors don’t even care that Romanch’s death isn’t due to the carriage driver but to ConEd.A letter was recently sent to Council member Virginia Maloney asking her why she was still supporting the ban now that it’s known that ConEd is probably responsible for Romanch’s accidental falling from the carriage. Previously, that was her reason for supporting the ban. No answer has been received.
 
Not having any valid reason to ban the carriage horses hasn’t prevented the City Council from trying to force passage of the bill and hoodwinking the public. The City Council seems to be flexing their power to assert that because they can pass this bill it should be passed. They have so little respect for the public that they continue to deceive them by calling for a ban while what they’re actually doing is pandering to real estate, who want the stables, and to the animal lobbyists.
 
Without any justification, why are Speaker Menin and other members of the City Council still pushing for a ban? Many of them as well as their supporters are infected by the leftist religion of animal oppression, i.e., the mantra that animals who work are exploited.
 
Part of this movement is the push for defending animals with vegetarianism, a popular trend among the left in NYC. It turns out that communist founders Marx and Engels made fun of vegetarians for opposing violence in the revolution. Trotsy called them “vegetarian Quaker-prattle.”

Interestingly, famous past vegetarians have a mixed record on kindness to animals. Ghandi’s record is clear. George Bernard Shaw was an anti-vivisectionist and vegetarian, but he was also a socialist and genocidal fanatic, sanctioning WWII’s worst excess. Hitler, although a well-known dog lover and vegetarian, had his doctor test cyanide on his favorite German shepherd, Blondi. She died instantly causing general mayhem, and grieving in the bunker, far greater than for the demise of Eva Braun. Then Hitler took his own life.
 
As to vegetarians and the carriage horses, at a protest years ago, the anti-carriage horse people were on one side of 59th St and mostly the carriage drivers were on the other side. After interviewing the protestors for Horse Directory Magazine, a collegue and I crossed over to interview the carriage drivers. It seems that this angered the protestors who picked up their fancy platters of vegan catered sandwiches that had just been delivered, and threw them at us.

Today’s animal lobbyists that are anti-carriage horses are equally uncivilized, and they now include many of the Council members. The coming weeks will reveal whether or not the City Council carries out the carriage horse ban. If they pass the bill to ban, they will be deceiving the public that they have a reason to do so when there is none.

Lately, it has been reported that many people in the Park have approached the carriage drivers to tell them that they hope they stay. Perhaps wiser members of the City Council will convince the others to do just that.