Chicago councilman wants to ban horse carriages
A Chicago alderman wants to outlaw horse-drawn carriage rides, citing concerns about safety, sanitation and animal cruelty.
Ald. Edward Burke made the proposal Wednesday, saying, “Carriage rides have outlived their usefulness in Chicago in 2014.”
He called it “an unsafe and obsolete tradition.”
His proposal follows a promise by New York's new mayor, Bill de Blasio, to ban horse-drawn carriage rides in Central Park.
In Chicago, rides are offered in places popular with tourists such as the section of Michigan Avenue known as the Magnificent Mile. They are barred from operating in extreme cold or hot temperatures.
Burke's ordinance would allow the city to refuse to renew existing licenses, effectively ending the practice.
The alderman is known for headline-grabbing proposals engineered in large part to provoke public debate.