New York votes 40 to 7 to end horse drawn carriages by June 2028, closing a 160 year Central Park tradition

The vote was not close, and everyone in the chamber knew what it ended. By 40 votes to 7, with two abstentions, the New York City Council on Thursday voted to ban horse drawn carriages from the city streets and Central Park beginning in June 2028. The trade has run its loop around the park since the 1800s. By the middle of the last century the city capped carriage licenses at 68, and the carriages became part of the picture visitors carry home, turning up in films from Elf to Home Alone 2.

Today historic vote marks our commitment to animal welfare, public safety, and protecting workers, Council Speaker Julie Menin said. Mayor Zohran Mamdani supports the bill and is expected to sign it. Earlier this month he said the horse carriage industry is coming to an end in New York City. He has 30 days to sign it, veto it, or let it become law without his signature.

The law carries a name. Romanch Law is named for Romanch Mahajan, 18, a tourist from India who died on June 17 when the horse pulling his family carriage bolted after the driver stepped away to take a picture of the family. His parents attended the council meeting. In the same month, a 16 year old carriage horse named Deniz collapsed and died in Central Park while pulling passengers. Animal welfare groups have campaigned against the trade for decades, arguing that city traffic, heat, noise and long hours are no place for horses, and the deaths this summer moved the argument from the margins to a 40 vote majority.

The drivers answer that a horse in harness is a working animal, not a trapped one, and that the ban takes their living without answering what happens to the horses. Alexus Lawson, a 28 year old driver from Queens who owns six horses, asked how she is supposed to care for them without the job. The bill requires the city to produce a workforce transition plan by April, to consider compensating operators for their businesses, and to arrange the future of the horses, which may not be slaughtered. The Transport Workers Union, which represents the owners and drivers, said it will seek a court order to block the law the minute the ink dries.

President Donald Trump weighed in from the city he grew up in. When there is a car accident in the area, of which there are many, they do not stop cars from entering the Park, he wrote. So why would they stop the carriages? It was a great tradition. Another piece of history that is gone. It will be missed. The carriages have about twenty months left. What replaces them on the park loop, and where roughly 200 horses go, are now city hall problems with a deadline.