New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to end horse-drawn carriages by 2028 is headed for court, with critics calling the PETA-backed phase-out unconstitutional and workers bracing to fight.
The New York City Council is set to vote on Intro 943, also called Romanch’s Law, a measure that would phase out the horse-drawn carriage industry by June 1, 2028, establish a transition plan for drivers, and require the humane disposition of the horses.
Fox News reported the Mamdani-backed proposal followed the death of 18-year-old tourist Romanch Mahajan, who jumped from a runaway carriage in Central Park; his mother was also injured. Animal rights groups, including PETA, support the ban. Councilwoman Vickie Paladino and the union representing carriage workers say lawsuits are coming if it passes.
The bill’s name ties the entire industry’s future to one tragedy. Carriage operators and longtime drivers now face a hard deadline, a forced transition, and a city leadership that has already locked arms with activists determined to shut the rides down.
Councilwoman Vickie Paladino told reporters the measure crosses a constitutional line and will draw immediate legal fire.
"Intro 943 is unconstitutional. Lawsuits are going to be filed immediately after this effort is passed. They're going to be tangled up in legalese."
She framed the carriages as more than nostalgia. The industry is a working livelihood for owners she described as a melting pot, and a draw for visitors who come from around the world specifically for the rides.
"It’s a tremendous tourist attraction. People come in from all over the world to take those carriage rides."
Paladino also challenged the administration’s public-safety priorities. She pointed to scooters and motorized bikes racing through the park at 20, 30, and even 40 miles an hour with no license, registration, or insurance, and asked how many people those vehicles run over. If City Hall truly cared about safety, she argued, it would get a handle on that traffic first.
"If the Mamdani administration truly cared about public safety, why don’t they get a handle on the scooter and bike industry?"
Mamdani’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the legal warnings.
The New York Post reported Mayor Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin struck a deal to ban horse-drawn carriages citywide, with the administration reviewing and approving the bill language. The ban would make the carriages illegal across the five boroughs beginning in June 2028.
Menin tied the revision of the status quo directly to the Central Park death.
"The tragic and preventable death of 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan made clear that the status quo is no longer acceptable."
Related coverage has noted the family sought $105 million from the city after the fatal ride. That grief is real. Turning a single runaway incident into the end of a century-old tourist trade is a policy choice, not an inevitability, and it is the choice Mamdani’s team is driving.
The same pattern of overreach has followed Mamdani into other fights, including the backlash after he refused to walk back his Israel “genocide” claim.
A Mamdani spokesperson cast the plan as careful and inclusive. Just the News carried the administration’s line that City Hall had worked with the council, union partners, carriage drivers, animal welfare advocates, and community leaders on a “just transition” that protects workers while ending the carriages in Central Park for good.
"We have been working closely with the City Council, union partners, carriage drivers, animal welfare advocates, and community leaders to deliver a just transition that protects workers while ending horse-drawn carriages in Central Park once and for all."
That language collides with the record on the ground. TWU Local 100, which represents carriage workers, has said it plans to challenge the ban in court if the legislation becomes law. Owner and manager Frank Riccobono of NYC Horse Carriage Rides and veteran driver Christina Hansen, a TWU Local 100 shop steward, spoke about what a 2028 shutdown would mean for people whose paychecks come from the carriages.
A transition plan on paper does not erase a forced exit. Drivers still lose the trade. Horses still leave the only work many of these teams have known. And the city still erases a visible piece of New York that tourists actually buy tickets to see.
Public rejection has already met Mamdani in uniformed rooms, including when he was booed off stage at an NYPD event on Staten Island after less than a minute.
President Donald Trump went public against the deal. In a Truth Social post highlighted by the Washington Examiner, he called the end of the Central Park horse-drawn carriage industry a loss rooted largely in a single accident after more than a hundred years of operation.
"So sad to see the beloved Central Park Horse-drawn Carriage Industry ending after over a Century, based largely on one tragic accident."
Trump’s point lands on a basic fairness test. Cars kill and injure people in New York every week. No one is legislating the automobile out of the five boroughs over one crash. The carriage trade, smaller and easier to target, gets the full phase-out treatment with PETA’s applause.
The industry’s defenders keep returning to the same facts: the rides are regulated work, a tourist magnet, and a living for families who built businesses around Central Park. Shutting them down by 2028 does not make the park safer from unlicensed scooters. It does satisfy an activist demand the mayor has chosen to elevate.
That same impulse to govern far outside core city problems showed up when Mamdani pressed an international agenda hard enough that Kyle Kuzma called him “a mayor playing president” over a Netanyahu arrest video.
Intro 943 packages the shutdown with softer edges: a driver transition and “humane disposition” for the horses. The core remains a ban. By June 1, 2028, the carriages are supposed to be gone from the city that made them famous.
Paladino’s lawsuit warning and the union’s court plans mean the vote is not the last word. If the council advances Romanch’s Law, judges will hear whether City Hall can erase a lawful industry this way, on this timeline, under this justification.
Mamdani has already collected controversy on foreign policy and policing, and even a high-profile Trump visit to Gracie Mansion did not quiet the fights around his record. The carriage ban adds a concrete local cost: jobs, tradition, and a park experience millions of visitors recognize.
New Yorkers who want safe streets can demand better control of reckless scooters and bikes without torching a century-old trade because activists found a mayor willing to do it. Accountability means weighing real livelihoods against ideological wins, and this ban fails that test.