Horse Girls and Gays Rejoice! Mamdani Says “Neigh” to Carriage Industry

In a major update for all New York City horse girls and gays, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and city council speaker Julie Menin endorsed a proposed horse drawn carriage bill on Tuesday, which would definitively ban the use of horse-drawn carriages in the city, particularly in Central Park, effective by June 2028. Mamdani’s confirmed endorsement and support of the bill on Tuesday makes it likely that the bill will become law, given that more than half of the council’s 51 members who will vote on the measure have already formally agreed to support it.The proposed bill, which will go to a city council vote on October 22, is an iteration of a number of pieces of proposed legislation that have cycled through the docket since 2010 in a years-long battle to ban the equine-based form of transportation from the city.Most recently, the proposed ban became a hot topic of discussion over the summer after an 18-year-old tourist from India named Romanch Mahajan was killed during a horse-drawn carriage ride. His mother had reportedly been bucked from the buggy when the horse suddenly and quickly started into a gallop, and Mahajan jumped off the carriage in an attempt to save her. This was reported to be the first human death in recent years caused by this kind of accident, though a number of horses in NYC, particularly Central Park, have died in carriage-related accidents, including collapses from exhaustion.This newest iteration of the proposed bill has been renamed “Romanch’s Law” in honor of the teen’s death. If passed, it would see the complete phase out of horse-drawn carriages and will require the drivers who intend to sell their horses to do so in a “humane manner.” A new paragraph added to this version of the bill reads, “A licensed horse may not be sold or otherwise transferred to a person for purposes of slaughter, resale for slaughter, or holding or transport for slaughter, or for use in a horse drawn cab business.” Per the bill, all licensed carriage horse