As soon as this fall, the New York City Council could answer a question that has plagued City government officials for decades: To ban or not to ban horse-drawn carriages in Central Park? The contentious debate heated up again earlier this summer, when a horse died from eating a Japanese yew plant in the park. Soon after that, a teenage tourist named Romanch Mahajan was thrown off a carriage and died, raising calls to stop the industry to a fever pitch.
A bill to ban the carriages, previously called Ryder's Law, was renamed Romanch's Law after Mahajan. It was heard by the council's Committee on Health on July 15, and bill sponsor Councilmember Chris Marte hopes the full council will vote on it sometime in September. Previous versions languished in the council for years, but with support from Speaker Julie Menin and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the ban now seems finally poised to pass.
The two sides of the argument have long been established: animal rights activists advocating for the horses and the carriage drivers fearful of losing their livelihood. One New Yorker, Kirk Skodis, believes he has the answer both sides could agree on: electric carriages.
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