New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to end the horse-carriage trade by 2028 is racing toward a council vote, and opponents say lawsuits will follow at once.
The New York City Council is set to vote on Intro 943, also called Romanch’s Law, a measure that would phase out horse-drawn carriage rides by June 1, 2028. The bill would create a transition plan for drivers and require what sponsors call the humane disposition of the horses. Fox News Digital reported that legal challenges are already expected if the measure clears the council.
Animal-rights groups, including PETA, back the ban. Carriage owners, drivers, and at least one council critic say the city is wiping out a working industry and a tourist draw on thin safety grounds while ignoring bigger risks in Central Park.
The legislation carries the name of Romanch Mahajan, an 18-year-old tourist who died after jumping from a runaway carriage in Central Park. His mother was injured in the same incident. A related claim seeks $105 million from the city. That tragedy is the public face of a campaign that has run for years and now has a mayor willing to finish it.
Mamdani reached a deal with City Council Speaker Julie Menin to advance the ban. Just the News reported the full council was lined up to vote on October 22, with the ban taking effect in June 2028 and workforce help framed as career counseling and job referrals for drivers, plus possible owner compensation.
Menin cast the rides as a growing liability. “Horse-drawn carriages have long been part of New York City’s history, but in an increasingly busy Central Park, this tradition has become a growing public safety liability,” she said in a statement.
Mamdani put the outcome in blunt terms. Breitbart reported his announcement that the industry is finished in the city, with the administration promising protections for workers, owners, and horses after Mahajan’s death in June.
"The horse carriage industry is coming to an end in New York City. Our administration will make sure workers and owners are protected and the horses are safe."
Drivers who heard talk of real help say the final package falls short. Jill Adamski said she felt betrayed after expecting amendments that never arrived for drivers and horses.
The same mayor has spent political capital on other fights that leave little room for traditional businesses or dissent, including standing firm on his Israel “genocide” charge after October 7 backlash.
Councilwoman Vickie Paladino told Fox News Digital the bill is unconstitutional and that lawyers will move the moment it passes.
"Intro 943 is unconstitutional. Lawsuits are going to be filed immediately after this effort is passed. They’re going to be tangled up in legalese."
She framed the stables as immigrant-owned small business, not a specialty lobby. “Let’s remember that these owners represent a melting pot.” She added that their livelihood “exists in and around the city,” that the rides are “a tremendous tourist attraction,” and that visitors come “from all over the world to take those carriage rides.”
The union representing carriage workers has said it will challenge the ban in court if the bill becomes law. Owner Frank Riccobono of NYC Horse Carriage Rides and veteran driver Christina Hansen, a TWU Local 100 shop steward, have described the 2028 deadline as an existential hit on people who still work the stands.
Mamdani’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the legal threats.
That pattern of pressing ahead while critics pile up matches other recent storms around City Hall, from Bill Maher branding him “tone deaf” over an Oct. 7 tribute to sharp pushback from Israeli officials.
Paladino turned the public-safety argument back on the administration. She pointed to motorized bikes going 20 miles an hour and scooters hitting 30 and 40, “zigzagging throughout the park, with no license, no registration and no insurance,” and asked how many people get run over by them. “If the Mamdani administration truly cared about public safety, why don’t they get a handle on the scooter and bike industry?”
The New York Post argued the only known human fatality in Central Park carriage history is Mahajan’s, in a crash that may have involved stray underground voltage, while roughly 200 people work in an unsubsidized trade that brings in millions in tourist dollars each year. Carriage medallions have sold for six figures. The ban would block selling horses for carriage use elsewhere and push workers into a city “workforce transition program,” extinguishing regulated private property value in the name of animal-rights pressure.
Efforts to kill the industry date back to 2010 over horse deaths from accidents and exhaustion. Sponsors now sell a “just transition.” Drivers hear a shutdown with paperwork.
Central Park still hosts heavy bike and scooter traffic, crime, and the same dense tourist crush the bill cites against the carriages. The 1,800-pound carriages remain a visible target. The faster, uninsured machines Paladino named do not.
Voters watching Mamdani’s wider record, including media blasts over his Oct. 7 statement, see a governing style that picks symbolic targets and leaves harder enforcement problems for later.
By June 1, 2028, the horse-drawn carriage industry inside New York City would be illegal under the measure. Drivers would be steered into transition services. Horses would face “humane disposition” rules that the public summaries do not define in detail. Owners who built medallion equity and repeat tourist business would lose the legal right to operate the work they know.
A city spokesperson said the administration had worked with the council, union partners, carriage drivers, animal-welfare advocates, and community leaders “to deliver a just transition that protects workers while ending horse-drawn carriages in Central Park once and for all.” Paladino and the union answer that claim with a court date.
The political coalition is clear enough. PETA and allied groups get the win they have sought for years. Progressive leadership gets a signature cut against a heritage business. The people who clean stalls, hold licenses, and sell rides get a deadline and a counseling flyer.
Mamdani has shown the same willingness to elevate activist frames elsewhere, as when a Mamdani-backed House candidate claimed Israeli forces held him during a West Bank olive harvest, keeping foreign conflicts and identity fights at the center of his brand.
New York has long balanced old trades with modern rules. Shutting a licensed, unsubsidized tourist industry on a single tragedy, while faster park traffic runs with less oversight, is a choice about power and priorities, not a narrow safety fix. If the council passes Intro 943, the next chapter belongs to the judges, and to the workers told their melting-pot livelihood is a liability the city no longer intends to allow.
