Plan to ban horse-drawn carriages splits San Antonio City Council

  

SAN ANTONIO – City Council is split over a recommendation plan to phase out horse-drawn carriages in downtown San Antonio.

The plan was presented during a special session on Thursday, marking the first time council members were briefed on the matter. Two months ago, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted unanimously for city staff to devise options on how to phase out the carriages within one to three years.

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The options laid out three key points that looked at possible changes to the city’s code on its carriages, financial assistance for business owners, and strategies to support workforce transition for operators if the ban was implemented.

All council members except District 9 Councilman John Courage showed support for the ban. However, council members did not come to an agreement on the timeline, animal welfare and impact on business owners.

District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez favored a 12-month plan as he felt officials had already delayed two years.

“Two years later, we’re talking about this deal. We did an airport deal faster than that. We did a $126 million baseball deal in record time and breakneck speed,” Pelaez said. “And this took two years just to come and tell us what people in San Antonio said. I don’t get it. And take into account those two years, now we are talking about a one-to-three, five, seven-year phase out.”

District 5 Councilwoman Teri Castillo opposed Pelaez’s viewpoint on his timeline. She said it would be “insulting” to eliminate these types of jobs by next year.

“I do not take this conversation lightly. While we say phasing out horse-drawn carriages, what we are really having a conversation about is killing 81 Texas jobs and eliminating five small businesses in the State of Texas,” Castillo said.

“And when we look at the average income for horse carriage operation and see that the majority earn over $50,000, with 11 of them earning roughly $90,000, and to tell them they are going to have to be retrained and potentially earn at least $44,000 is insulting.”

Castillo continued by saying she believes anything less than a five-year phase-out plan would put small businesses in a larger debt, as officials also revealed a business operator survey showing owners had debt ranging from $67,000 to $700,000.

The salary Castillo mentioned was the average income for people who finished the Ready To Work program, which was also mentioned because enrollment in the program was proposed in the official’s phasing-out plan.

Although no vote happened, other members also expressed concern about the plan. Despite the back-and-forth, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said he wants the city to “transition thoughtfully, compassionately, as soon as we can.”

A vote on the future of horse carriages in downtown San Antonio could take place in early December.

Background:

The five-member Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted unanimously on Aug. 19 for city staff to devise options on how to phase out horse-drawn carriages.

The decision came after an online city survey got nearly 50,500 responses, with 52% supporting a ban. The other 48% were split between keeping the carriages operating as they are, expanding them outside of downtown, or moving them to city parks.

A City of San Antonio online survey about horse-drawn carriages received 50,476 responses (City of San Antonio)

District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, who co-sponsored the original ban proposal in November 2022, asked that the phase-out plan include options to support acquiring electric, “horseless” carriages.

Such carriages cost about $20,000, San Antonio Police Assistant Director Rick Riley told the committee.

“I’d love for it to be as expeditious as possible,” McKee-Rodriguez told reporters after the meeting. “We want to be fair to the business owners, of course, and we want to be reasonable in the type of support that we can provide. You know, what a transition period would look like, I’m really interested in seeing what those one-year and two-year options look like.”

Ban supporters have cited animal welfare and traffic concerns as the driving reasons for a ban. At the same time, the carriage companies have said they’re being unfairly maligned and say they treat their animals well.

The carriage companies also say they’ve offered alternatives, such as reducing their hours or the number of carriages on the street at one time.

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