Politics & Government Active Updated Aug 17, 2026
The carriage horse ban fight
The City Council is weighing a bill, renamed Romanch's Law, to ban Central Park's horse-drawn carriages after an 18-year-old tourist died falling from one in June, the industry's eighth on-the-job incident since May 2025. Mayor Mamdani backs a ban, following two of his predecessors, but Transport Workers Union Local 100 opposes ending roughly 200 carriage jobs and backs a rival safety bill instead.
The story so far
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Aug 17, 2026 Latest
The family of Romanch Mahajan filed four notices of claim seeking $105 million from the city, alleging agencies never fixed a known stray-voltage problem near Cherry Hill Fountain where the horse bolted. Con Edison said July testing found only very low levels of stray voltage traced to none of its own equipment, while family attorney Sagar Chadha called the death an avoidable accident.
Gothamist 
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Jul 28, 2026
The family of Romanch Mahajan, the 18-year-old killed when a spooked carriage horse threw him, said it plans to sue the city, arguing it never built basic safety infrastructure for horses.
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Jul 17, 2026
Speaker Julie Menin said the worker-transition safeguards in the carriage-horse ban bill must be beefed up before a final Council vote, as the union representing carriage drivers accused her of political opportunism.
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Jul 16, 2026
The City Council's Health Committee held a marathon hearing on Romanch's Law, which now has 26 co-sponsors giving it a working majority in the 51-member Council. Romanch Mahajan's father testified by video from India about the moment his 18-year-old son died after a spooked carriage horse threw him from the vehicle.
Politics | Spectrum News NY1 
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Jul 15, 2026
The City Council's Health Committee held its first hearing on Romanch's Law. Speaker Julie Menin became the first sitting Council speaker to back a full ban on horse-drawn carriages, while Mayor Mamdani said he supports ending the industry but called the bill's worker protections insufficient.
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Jul 14, 2026
Speaker Julie Menin and Council Member Lynn Schulman set a Wednesday hearing on Council Member Christopher Marte's bill, newly renamed Romanch's Law, to ban Central Park's horse-drawn carriages after 18-year-old tourist Romanch Mahajan died June 17 falling from a spooked carriage. Mayor Mamdani said the horses should go, while Transport Workers Union Local 100 opposes a ban and backs a rival bill adding hitching posts and shifting carriage hours instead.
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