Dallas City Council members will decide Wednesday whether to ban horse-drawn carriages, a nostalgic attraction for tourists and celebrations that animal rights groups have decried as inhumane and unsafe.
A proposed amendment to a city ordinance would remove all language allowing horse-drawn carriages as a form of transportation-for-hire. It comes after a city council committee met in April and recommended banning horse-drawn carriages from Dallas roads for safety reasons and instead moving toward electric alternatives.
Ban Horse Carriages Dallas co-founder Gloria Raquel Carbajal said she’s glad to see the agenda item after her group’s years-long fight to get council members to consider a ban.
“It's a win-win for everybody,” Carbajal said. “Because I know people that are out there driving ... they're worried about ... just driving safely. And then you have a horse out here. To me, it just doesn't make sense. It's just a disaster and a dangerous situation.”
Carbajal asks supporters on Facebook to contact council members daily with a plea to ban horse-drawn carriages. She leads the effort in Dallas along with Jodie Wiederkehr of the Partnership to Ban Horse Carriages Worldwide and the Chicago Alliance for Animals.
The two shared photos and videos with KERA News of horses carrying carriage riders in more than 100-degree heat, traveling the wrong way on one-way roads and standing in rideshare-only lanes.
The City of Dallas doesn’t have any record of crashes or other incidents involving horse-drawn carriages. Wiederkehr cited news reports of an incident involving only a horse during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in South Dallas in 2012 and two incidents in Highland Park in 2014 and 2015.
“It doesn't matter if a city has an accident or not,” Wiederkehr said. “Whether a fatality happens in Houston or New York City or San Antonio, it can happen anywhere. It's a dangerous trade when you put 1,000-plus-pound prey animals on the street who frighten and startle easily, surrounded by emergency vehicles and blaring motorcycles.”
If council members voted to ban horse-drawn carriages, Dallas would join other major cities like Chicago, Illinois, and Salt Lake City, Utah, in prohibiting the attraction. A potential ban has the support of officials like District 7 Council Member Adam Bazaldua, who said at the April committee meeting the city should be proactive in keeping horses and humans safe.
Operating Northstar Carriages four days a week in Dallas is Brian High’s full-time job. A ban on horse-drawn carriages would put his family and his employees from across the country out of business, he said.
“They depend on that income,” High said. “That's part of their yearly revenue that they have to support their families. And a ban on horses in Dallas will affect me. It'll be devastating for my financial situation as it will be for a lot of others, for sure.”
High and his father have operated Northstar Carriage in Krum for the past 30 years. The company has about seven or eight horses in rotation during the summer and more in the fall and winter to cart people around at weddings, funerals and during the holidays.
Northstar is the only horse-drawn carriage operator permitted to operate within Dallas, but High estimates there are about 20 operators who work in Dallas, and permitting rules have changed over time. Some operators only working during Christmas and some that are one- or two-carriage operations. Threejays Carriages is only permitted to give rides in Highland Park but stages in Dallas.
City rules say horses cannot work when the temperature is higher than 99 degrees Fahrenheit or when the thermal heat index exceeds 150, a calculation that factors in humidity. High’s company follows the horse heat index — which is slightly different — and he said that number matters more than just the temperature outside.
“If you can hot shoe a horse, I don't care how hot your pavement is downtown, it's not going to be as hot as a glowing red shoe,” he said. “It's just not.”
District 14 council member Paul Ridley and groups like Save Dallas Horse Carriages have spoken out against a horse carriage ban. In the weeks leading up to the council’s vote, High said he feels there’s been botched communication with operators, and some council members have shown an overall lack of understanding about the city’s rules around carriages.
Anti-horse carriage groups shouldn’t cite horse-drawn carriage incidents in other cities as evidence that the attraction should be banned in Dallas, High said.
“This entire thing is a manufactured crisis,” he said. “There was no problem here. There's not been a safety issue. There's no regulatory resources, expenditure that's taxing the city really hard.”
The city would still allow horse carriages on private property if a ban is approved, according to a memo. Carriages for special events would be handled on a case-by-case basis through the Office of Special Events.
Under rule changes, current providers could still offer the carriage experience with electric carriages. But John Jaksch with Threejays said the horse is what makes the experience special.
Jaksch and High don’t trust the quality of electric carriages sold online on sites like Alibaba. If the city wants electric carriages with the same level of craftsmanship as those that are horse-drawn, the city will have to spend thousands more on each.
“People enjoy the city, and there's a lot of things that you will not see in the city in a car or a taxi or an Uber,” Jaksch said. “Having the open air view really allows you to appreciate the city for what it is.”
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