Police commissioner Bill Bratton announced this week that the NYPD will begin enforcing rules to ensure horse-and-carriage rides are done in as humane a fashion as possible. Previously, that duty was held by the ASPCA. According to CBS, cops will conduct stable inspections and are “trying to figure out how police will enforce rules banning the operation of the carriages in extreme weather.”
Carriage drivers aren’t thrilled about it. “I don’t know if it’ll help, because the Police Department works for de Blasio. I would like to think that they’re going to go by the letter of the law, and not by the mayor’s, you know, of course, taking action to put me out of business,” said Stephen Malone of the Horse & Carriage Association.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, reasonably, would like to see the program shut down entirely. “They’re not humane, they’re not appropriate to the year 2014, it’s over,” he said last year. “We are going to get rid of the horse carriages, period.”
For the horses’ sakes, let’s hope the cops treat them a little better than they do the people they’re supposed to be protecting and serving.
(Photo: @Wally Gobetz)
