Advocates Seek To Restrict Horse-Drawn Carriages To Central Park

CENTRAL PARK, NY — An advocacy group that has lobbied against New York City's carriage horse industry is implementing a new strategy: Getting horses off the streets and into the park.

New Yorkers for Clean Livable and Safe Streets, also known as NYCLASS, are gearing up to lobby the City Council in the coming months and weeks to pass legislation that would restrict carriage horse operations to Central Park and implement a series of reforms to provide a better quality of life for the horses, spokesman Chris Coffey told Patch.

"Overall we think that the streets of Manhattan are not a safe space for horse to be," Coffey told Patch. "There's a lot of traffic, a lot of noise and the sidewalks get very, very hot."

The legislation would also require the carriage horse industry to end the practice of slaughtering carriage horses after they are retired, implement a mandatory retirement age for horses and construct larger stables, Coffey told Patch. The reforms would regulate the carriage industry to care for their horses much like the NYPD does with its mounted unit, Coffey said.

"Right now Bernie Madoff has more room in his jail cell than some of these large horses do in the stable," Coffey told Patch.

While some may see the reforms as a step back for NYCLASS, which endorsed Mayor Bill de Blasio four years ago when he campaigned to ban the carriage industry entirely, Coffey said the organization maintains the belief that horses should not be on city streets. But while an outright ban of the carriage industry may not be achievable right now, Coffey "feels good" about the chances to pass a reform bill through city council.

The organization may get an assist from City Hall. Mayor de Blasio said Monday that he would support a bill to regulate the industry if it could reasonably pass through the council, the Daily News reported.

"“I worked very hard on it, and I'm ready to work on it again. But you still need 26 votes,” de Blasio said at a press conference in Queens. “So my point is, I'm ready to move something if the Council is ready to move it.”

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