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New York mayor, other leaders push to ban horse-drawn carriage rides after teen tourist’s death
CNN • • nation
Key Points:
- An 18-year-old tourist, Romanch Mahajan, died after jumping from a runaway horse carriage in Central Park, marking the first fatality in over 150 years of horse carriage operations in the park.
- The incident has intensified calls from the Central Park Conservancy and animal welfare groups to suspend or ban horse carriages due to safety concerns, citing multiple recent accidents and the challenges horses face in busy urban environments.
- Carriage industry representatives acknowledge the tragedy but advocate for improved safety regulations rather than an outright ban, emphasizing the need to protect their livelihoods and proposing measures like installing hitching posts for safer horse management.
- New York City officials, including City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, support legislative efforts to end horse-drawn carriages in Central Park while seeking to provide job transitions for affected workers.
- The carriage involved in the fatal accident ceased operations, with the driver suspended indefinitely and the horse retired, as the industry reassesses safety protocols following the tragedy.
