A Metropolis Council committee voted Friday to kill “Ryder’s Law,” a invoice that will ban the Central Park horse carriages from working in New York Metropolis, casting doubt over the way forward for the push to abolish the business and marking the primary time the Council has taken a stance on the politically fraught concern.
The invoice, launched by outgoing Queens Councilman Bob Holden, was defeated within the chamber’s Well being Committee after just one member, Brooklyn Councilman Simcha Felder, voted in favor of it. 4 members voted in opposition to it and two abstained, whereas two others — together with Council speaker candidate Julie Menin — didn’t present as much as the continuing.
It’s uncommon for payments to make it to a Council committee vote after they don’t have sufficient assist to go. Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who’s leaving workplace on the finish of the yr attributable to time period limits, has for months refused Holden’s calls for to contemplate his horse carriage ban invoice for a listening to or a vote.
However Holden, a conservative Democrat who’s additionally leaving workplace on the finish of the yr, pressured Friday’s continuing by invoking an arcane procedural rule that required the Well being Committee to both maintain a vote or schedule a listening to on the measure inside 30 days.
Holden isn’t a member of the Well being Committee. Nonetheless, he appeared on the continuing and tried to get the committee to schedule a full listening to on the invoice as a substitute of instantly voting on it, however that request was shot down by Well being Committee Chairwoman Lynn Schulman (D-Queens).
“I’m going to file an injunction of discrimination,” Holden fumed in response to Schulman’s rejection. He didn’t elaborate on the character of the alleged discrimination, however mentioned it was “disgusting.”
The trouble to banish the horse carriages from Central Park goes again years, with ex-Mayor Invoice de Blasio having unsuccessfully tried to do it earlier than leaving workplace in late 2021.
Animal rights activists have lengthy argued the business must be banned on the grounds that the horses are being handled inhumanely, pointing to incidents of the animals collapsing in the course of the road.
However the metropolis’s Transport Employees Union has argued banning the business would wreck the roles of a whole lot of carriage drivers and say there’s methods to make sure the horses’ security. TWU members — in addition to animal rights activists — confirmed up in pressure to Friday’s listening to, with the Council having to arrange three overflow rooms with the intention to accommodate everybody.
Whereas the Holden invoice is lifeless, it’s unlikely to spell the tip of the combat over the town’s horse carriage business.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who’s being sworn in Jan. 1, has voiced assist for banning the business, although he says he desires to have interaction in dialogue with the TWU to determine a compromise on how the drivers can discover related jobs, probably by getting electrical carriages.
A spokeswoman for Mamdani didn’t instantly return a request for touch upon Friday’s vote.
The subsequent Council will seemingly must introduce a brand new invoice much like Holden’s and begin the method from scratch with the intention to get a ban enacted.
On the 2021 marketing campaign path, Mayor Adams was in opposition to enacting a ban on horse carriage drivers. However in September, Adams reversed himself and known as on the Council to enact a ban. The TWU, led by union head John Samuelsen, has lengthy claimed these pushing for a horse carriage ban are motivated by monetary pursuits.
Earlier this week, Samuelsen’s union filed a lawsuit in opposition to NYCLASS, the principle animal advocacy group favoring a ban, alleging that the group had knowingly unfold false claims to construct assist for eliminating the horse carriage business. That swimsuit got here after the union final month fired off authorized threats to various different people, together with Randy Mastro, Adams’ first deputy mayor.
