Marte questions Birnkrant on unattended horse documentation
Marte asks Birnkrant about documentation of unattended horses. She describes finding about 10 unattended horses in a brief park visit, says drivers take photos for tips as part of their business model, and has hours of footage.
Adita, how often do you see unintended horses in Central Park and how many documented episodes do you have that illustrates what we know is reality in the park?
I mean, I've been involved.
I've been involved in animal advocacy.
different facets, the wild horse issue, wildlife, urban wildlife, but also the horse carriages for almost 20 years.
It has been happening for 20 years so constantly that at a certain point documenting it and reporting it became futile, but I still do it all the time.
The day after TWU held their press conference saying that they had taken extraordinary measures and retrained, I just stopped by the park for a brief period of time, and in that period I found about
10 horses just from 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue being left unattended.
Some of them, no drivers anywhere around.
Drivers taking pictures.
It's literally happening every day, multiple times a day.
And I believe there's going to be testimony from a pedicab driver who's in the business for 23 years who can attest to that.
It is in part of their...
Advertisements is that like the the ride that Romange took they take three pictures
who's taking the picture the carriage drivers get out this is how they make tips is by taking pictures and leaving the horses unattended but not only that they're left unattended on the hack lines
they're left unattended in areas they're not even supposed to operate and at any moment those horses can spook and run but it's important to say that many of the worst spooking crashes and injuries have occurred when the driver is in the driver's seat in control
because when a horse spooks and takes off
It often can't be stopped.
It's a huge, powerful animal with a flight drive, and they...
take off and that has happened many times but clearly just leaving your horses abandoned in the middle of one of the busiest parks in the world is a very reckless thing to do and they're still taking pictures
yesterday I have the video I will submit it of a family with a toddler in the carriage right in Grand Army Plaza with a cop car behind them and a lot of chaos going on
He did this in the open because there's really, I just don't know that there's any other way that they know how to operate this business, and that's why it needs to be shut down.
We can't expect DOH to run after 68 carriages constantly preventing them from killing people.
It's not going to happen.
Thank you for your advocacy and leadership on this issue.
Thank you.
Okay.
Do you want to respond?
If I could just elaborate a little bit.
How could you think that a prey animal like a horse, 1,500 to 2,000 pounds, will not get spooked again, even with the driver, like Adita said, with the driver at the reins?
It can happen.
It can happen any time in a more crowded and a noisier city.
This is going to happen again.
And we're just fooling ourselves to think that we can control that.
We can't.
So let's wake up, folks.
This is the handwriting's on the wall.
This industry has to go by the wayside, and we will retrain the drivers.
The city will get great jobs, period.
Who would be against that?
Except the owners.
Why the TWU?
I never heard of a union representing management.
Have you?
All right, thank you.
Ms.
Bernkrant, can I ask you a question?
Sure.
So if you would be kind enough to give us specific amendments to the council of what you'd like to see changed in the bill, we would like to get that from you.
Absolutely.
So if you could submit that, that would be great.
Absolutely.
All right.
I want to thank this panel very much for taking the time to be here today.
Really, really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Okay, we're going to call up now Borough President Brad Hoylman-Siegel.
And we have...
Erica Sullivan, who works for Assemblymember Deborah Glick.
Is she here?
Oh, okay.
Borrow President, go ahead.