City Council could debate horse-drawn carriage ban this year | #citycouncil

A white horse with gray spots, its mane in braids, stood at the intersection of Navarro and East Pecan streets waiting for the traffic light to turn green.

Blue Jeans was getting a short break from pulling a Cinderalla-style carriage, decked out in blue LED lights and white tinsel, along downtown streets.

Behind him, a GMC Sierra pickup with a lit-up wreath affixed to its grill blared Grupo Frontera’s “Vete” from its souped-up stereo system. A double-decker tour bus passed by the horse’s left side, its exhaust fumes mingling with the odor of manure.

Blue Jeans and dozens of other horses haul tourists and locals past the Alamo, River Walk and other center-city landmarks year-round. The holiday season is one of carriage operators’ busiest periods, and that Sunday night in mid-December was near the peak of Christmas reverie, with lines of people waiting for carriage rides.

In other words, it was business as usual.

But the new year could be a fraught one for the carriage companies.

In late 2022, District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and District 3 Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran proposed banning horse-drawn carriages from city streets by the end of 2023, calling the business “an inhumane, cruel means of travel in San Antonio.” Many animal rights activists agree.

Their proposal has gone nowhere so far. But Mayor Ron Nirenberg said a key council committee will likely take up the issue this year — if not an outright ban, then possibly new rules that would at least partially push the industry out of a traffic-choked downtown.

Nirenberg chalked up the lack of movement to council having more pressing issues to tackle.

As the chair of the City Council’s Governance Committee, which includes council’s four senior-most members, the mayor has the power to decide which policy proposals land on its agenda for discussion and review — which is often the first step in turning a council member’s idea into a city policy.

The committee has met eight times since McKee-Rodriguez and Viagran submitted their proposal.

“It just hasn’t been scheduled because there’s been a lot of high-priority issues that we’ve had to put on the agenda, including (city) commission interviews and things like that,” Nirenberg said. “We’ve had a budget process to go through. We had a council election that we had to go through.”

Animal rights activists have long pushed for stricter regulations for San Antonio’s carriage industry.

And they won a victory in 2013, when the City Council lowered horses’ maximum workday from 10 to eight hours, required a 16-hour break between shifts and limited the number of occupants in a large carriage to 14 — changes carriage operators supported.

At the time, however, activists urged the council to go further and abolish the industry entirely.

Five carriage companies have permits to operate downtown, according to the San Antonio Police Department, which enforces local regulations for the industry. Each company is allowed to operate five carriages within a two-mile radius of City Hall at any one time.

Animal rights advocate Mariah Smith launched a change.org petition in January 2022 renewing the call to outlaw horse-drawn carriages. It had garnered 2,265 signatures as of Friday.

Some big cities have been struggling to decide what to do about the industry, a perennial favorite among visitors. It’s one small flank of the hospitality industry.

Chicago banned horse-drawn carriages in 2020. New York City leaders have been trying to do so since 2007. The Dallas City Council is considering a ban, with public discussions planned for later this year.

Smith had hoped that San Antonio’s council would take up the phase-out of horse carriages within a few months of Viagran and McKee-Rodriguez filing their proposal, known as a council consideration request.

“I feel the mayor doesn’t feel like this is a priority for him, which is why the CCR is just sitting there,” Smith said.

“I get it’s just horses — it’s not the biggest human rights issue, it’s not the most popular issue,” she said. “But this is something that a lot of San Antonians are passionate about, and it’s not just for the animal’s sake, it’s for public safety’s sake.”

The slow moving carriages can be a headache for drivers. Activists say the presence of carriages amid traffic puts the horses, their passengers and motorists at risk of a collision.

Smith believes Texas House Bill 2127, which opponents dubbed the “Death Star” bill, may have contributed to the delay — or at least city officials’ fears about the law’s reach. It aims to stop cities and counties from adopting stricter regulations than what state law allows in eight broad areas, including labor and business. The law empowers individuals and businesses to sue local governments that they believe have violated HB 2127.

City Attorney Andy Segovia refused to say whether he believed the law, which took effect Sept. 1, would apply to the carriage industry.

“Recognizing that a State court recently ruled HB2127 unconstitutional, we will not comment on the potential application of HB 2127 to a specific ordinance until the appeal process has run its course,” Segovia said in a statement.

A Travis County judge in August ruled that the law is unconstitutional after Houston, San Antonio and other cities challenged the bill in court. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed, and until a high court rules on the appeal, the law remains in effect.

District 8 Councilman Manny Peláez rejected the notion that the new law contributed to the lack of action on Viagran and McKee-Rodriguez’s proposal. Peláez and District 4 Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia signed their memo, making a show of support for council taking up the issue.

“I think there was some consensus that hitting the pause button temporarily while we dealt with other issues was smart, particularly (given) the loud reaction we got from some of the community,” Peláez said, referring to the outcry from carriage operators and drivers who want horse carriages off downtown streets.

Neither McKee-Rodriguez nor Viagran responded to interview requests.

The city’s Animal Care Services Department spent much of 2023 crafting its new strategic plan, which could have been another reason the ban proposal didn’t move. ACS regulates, inspects and issues permits for the horses and barns, so department staff would be involved in any discussions about changing local regulations for the industry.

Peláez, who is considering a run for mayor in 2025, said he still supports doing away with horse-drawn carriages in the central business district. The increase in the number of extremely hot days — with last summer being the hottest on record in San Antonio — has only reinforced his position, he said.

Carriages are barred from operating when the temperature exceeds 95 degrees, and from 12 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Air Quality Health Alert Days when the ozone pollution level is high.

In September 2022, however, the city’s Transportation Advisory Board approved recommending doing away with the air quality rule, but that recommendation has yet to go to the City Council for approval. ACS Director Shannon Sims supported that move, according to meeting minutes, based on the recommendation of city-contracted veterinarian Dr. Benjamin Espy. 

The advisory board also was set to consider whether to recommend allowing carriages to operate after 8:30 p.m. when the temperature is above 95 degrees, a discussion that has yet to happen.

In October, the board was informed that until the council reviews McKee-Rodriguez and Viagran’s policy proposal, “staff would not take any recommended changes to the City Council concerning the horse carriage industry,” minutes note.

Peláez said he would be open to a compromise that stops short of outlawing the industry.

“I’m happy to negotiate some kind of resolution to this. Maybe that is that the horses are only out during much lower temperature thresholds or in different parts of town,” he said. “We’re a downtown that has tens of millions of people in it, and more and more cars every single day, with lots of construction going on, and I feel like this is not an appropriate place for horses while a lot of this activity is going on.”

The mayor expressed a similar position.

“My approach to this is that it’s dangerous for people and animals where horse-drawn carriages are interacting with increasingly congested downtown traffic,” Nirenberg said. “So, at the very least, I would like to have a policy discussion about where horse-drawn carriages should be operating.”

The original policy proposal should come before the Governance Committee “almost certainly” this year, Nirenberg said.

Representatives of the five permitted carriage companies — Bluebonnet, Lollypop, H.R.H., Yellow Rose and Lonestar— did not return requests for comment.

Operators previously told the Express-News that if the city bans their business, they would have to euthanize some of their horses if they were unable to find animal rescue organizations to take them in.

The companies have the Oklahoma-based Calvery Group on their side. The industry organization aims to “protect and advance the constitutional and private property rights of law-abiding animal owners” — by taking legal action, if necessary.

Animal rights activists such as Smith have the Florida-based The Brady Hunter Foundation in their corner. The foundation is involved in efforts to outlaw carriage horses in Philadelphia and New York.

As part of that fight, it “has been looking for opportunities to collaborate with like-minded strategic partners to develop eco-friendly electric carriages to be introduced in select U.S. cities, including San Antonio,” founder Josh Fox said in a statement.

“We have been actively vetting production partners and are excited about the opportunity to introduce electric carriages in cities across the country in an effort to garner the much-needed support for the removal of horse-drawn carriages,” he said.

It remains to be seen whether San Antonio’s tourism industry would wade into the fight.

Chaitan Mugili, board chair of the San Antonio Hotel & Lodging Association, said the group does not currently have a position on McKee-Rodriguez or Viagran’s proposal.

In the meantime, Blue Jeans will keep plodding his way through downtown traffic, as long as tourists are willing to pay.

The two passengers in Blue Jeans’ carriage at the corner of Navarro and East Pecan streets had paid a total for $50 for a 23-minute ride.

On that December evening, as the horse finished his circuit, customers were lined up across from the Hard Rock Cafe waiting for him, ready for their turn to see the sights — and smell the smells — of a festive carriage ride.