Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council leaders struck a deal to ban Central Park horse carriages by 2028, drivers say the move will cost them their homes.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin have reached an agreement to phase out the horse-drawn carriage industry, with a hard end date of June 2028 if the council passes the bill. The plan would shut down a tourist fixture that has operated in the city for 168 years and leave carriage owners and drivers facing a scramble for work, housing, and any real compensation.
The revised legislation, called Romanch's Law, is set for a City Council vote on Oct. 22. It is named for 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan, who died in a carriage horse accident in Central Park in June. His family pressed for the measure after the crash, and Democratic leaders are now treating that tragedy as the final reason to kill the trade.
Mamdani, already a flashpoint for progressive power inside the party as Ted Cruz has warned about the left’s rising stars, framed the outcome as settled. On social media Tuesday night he wrote that the industry is finished and that his administration would protect workers, owners, and the horses.
"The horse carriage industry is coming to an end in New York City. Our administration will make sure workers and owners are protected and the horses are safe."
City Hall is selling the package as a “just transition.” The bill requires the Mamdani administration to draw up a plan to connect drivers with new economic opportunities and to find new homes for the horses. A City Hall spokesperson said officials had worked with the council, union partners, carriage drivers, animal-welfare groups, and community leaders to end horse-drawn carriages in Central Park “once and for all.”
Drivers who actually work the carriages are not celebrating. Christina Hansen of Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents the carriage drivers, warned that the bill will wreck households that carry mortgages, bills, and children. She said people will face eviction and lose their houses if the industry is wiped out.
CBS News New York reported her plea that council members remember they came to government to help people, not hurt them, and her vow that the industry will not surrender the fight.
"This bill will be devastating for carriage drivers and carriage owners. People will be evicted. People will lose their houses. They have mortgages and bills they need to pay. They have children."
Hansen also called the push unconstitutional and said drivers will go to court if the bill passes. She accused well-funded activists at New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets, or NYCLASS, of trying to crush working people and insisted the union had not fought for years for horses and drivers only to watch government destroy their livelihoods.
TWU International’s John Samuelsen went further on the fine print. He said Speaker Menin’s bill offers no meaningful economic relief. Under the measure as he described it, the city would prepare a worker transition plan by April 2027, lean on weak tools like job fairs and job counseling, and only “consider” financial compensation for owners who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on city-issued medallions and the businesses built around them. Samuelsen labeled the whole episode reprehensible and disgraceful political opportunism.
That gap between soaring “just transition” language and job-fair relief is the core of the workers’ case. Progressive city leaders are ending a trade that still pays the rent, while the safety net they promise is mostly planning memos and counseling appointments years down the road.
Menin put the death of Romanch Mahajan at the center of the council’s case. She said the crash made clear that the status quo is no longer acceptable and that horse-drawn carriages, long part of city history, have become a growing public safety liability in an increasingly busy Central Park.
In remarks tied to the deal, the speaker said the council would vote on Romanch’s Law to protect New Yorkers, visitors, and the horses, and that the legislation would force the administration to connect workers with new opportunities. She argued the city can honor tradition while moving forward on safety, workers, and economic vitality.
"The tragic and preventable death of 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan made clear that the status quo is no longer acceptable. Horse-drawn carriages have long been part of New York City's history, but in an increasingly busy Central Park, this tradition has become a growing public safety liability."
Just the News reported the same safety-liability framing from Menin as Democratic leaders locked in the phase-out and prepared the October vote, with transition help for drivers and only consideration of compensation for owners, horses, equipment, and licenses.
Council Member Christopher Marte, the bill’s sponsor, called the result a win-win that would send animals to sanctuaries and protect workers through a transition plan. Council Member Harvey Epstein, who heads the council’s animal-welfare caucus, said New York is too busy to keep horses walking through its streets and that the city can no longer sustain the industry.
The Central Park Conservancy also supports the move. On the other side, NYCLASS executive director Edita Birnkrant said the long-overdue ban on what her group calls cruel and dangerous carriages will pass, credited years of advocacy, and thanked Mahajan’s family for turning grief into a push for change.
Mamdani’s team is not only ending carriages. The same mayor has faced socialist demands to fire his NYPD commissioner after an ICE-related shooting, a reminder that activist factions expect him to deliver on ideology across public safety and city rules.
The New York Post reported that Mamdani and Menin struck the deal to make horse-drawn carriages illegal beginning in June 2028, that the council vote is planned for Oct. 22, and that the Mamdani administration reviewed and approved the bill language. Spokesperson Sneha Choudhary repeated the “just transition” line about protecting workers while ending the carriages for good.
Fox News put the start date at June 1, 2028, if the council approves the measure, and underscored the same bind for workers: a city transition plan due by April 2027 without guaranteed financial compensation.
For carriage families, the sequence is blunt. A fatal accident in June became the moral hammer. A mayor and speaker cut a deal. A named bill heads to a floor vote. The industry that sold rides through Central Park for more than a century and a half gets a countdown clock, while owners who poured life savings into medallions are told the city might “consider” writing a check.
Democratic leaders casting this as compassion for horses and tourists still have to answer for the people who hold the reins today. Job fairs in 2027 do not pay a mortgage in 2026. Counseling does not replace a medallion business built over years. And a phase-out sold as inevitable looks different to a driver staring at eviction papers.
National Democrats already face hard questions when enforcement and accountability arrive from the other direction, including pressure on Senate Democrats after the House backed a new anti-fraud push. In New York, the same party brand is moving fast to retire a visible traditional trade on a progressive timeline.
Hansen’s warning stands as the clearest working-class rebuttal on record: city power is being used to end livelihoods first and sort out the human wreckage later. If the council votes yes on Oct. 22, the court fight she promised will test whether “just transition” is a plan or a slogan.
When city hall sides with activist groups and leaves medallion holders with job fairs and crossed fingers, working New Yorkers learn exactly where they rank in the progressive order of concerns.
