Carriage Horses

[Guest guest]

Nov 11, 2007 4:12 PM PRESS CONFERENCE FOR THE CARRIAGE HORSE BILL Body: HORSE SENSE Weekly updates about issues and actions concerning New York City's Carriage Horses Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages www.banhdc.org Press Conference / Rally ** Volunteer ** Carriage Horse Documentary ** Polls - CBS and AM-NY ** Letters PRESS CONFERENCE FOR THE CARRIAGE HORSE BILL Save the date! Saturday, December 8th at 12 noon Council Member Tony Avella's office expects the bill to ban horse drawn carriages to be introduced in mid December to the City Council. There will be a press conference / rally on Saturday, December 8, 2007 at 12 noon on the steps of City Hall. Save this date - more details to follow. VOLUNTEER TO HELP THE HORSES Saturday, November 17, 2007 The Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages always needs volunteers to help get signatures on petitions to the Mayor and City Council

asking them to pass legislation to ban the horse-drawn carriage industry -- and to hold posters. This is not a demonstration but an educational event. It is an excellent opportunity to help the horses and to see how supportive both tourists and New Yorkers are. You can volunteer for one hour or four. We need to know when you will be there so we are sure to have coverage. Please contact Rita, our volunteer coordinator, at volunteerforthecoalition (AT) gmail (DOT) com if you can volunteer. WHEN: Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 12:00 - 4:00. WHERE: West side of 5th Ave. between Central Park South and 58th St. - near the Plaza fountain. If you have not already done so, please participate in our Bloomberg postcard campaign It is a very important tool directed to the Mayor - and we know that they are being counted and documented by the

Mayor's office. If you would like to participate in this campaign, please contact us at coalitionbanhdc. Tell us how many you want and provide your mailing address - we will send them to you at no cost. The card is addressed to Mayor Bloomberg and asks him to ban the horse-drawn carriage industry. We ask that you have your friends, family and coworkers sign the card and mail it in. To date, we have sent hundreds of post cards to Mayor Bloomberg from New Yorkers and tourists alike. You may read more about it in a previous newsletter by clicking on the link above. NEW APPROACH FOR VOLUNTEERS: We ask for volunteers every week and the results are mixed. Recently I reached out to many of you who had originally sent me e-mails asking about volunteer opportunities. I asked if you could devote at least two hours a month on

a Saturday to volunteer with us. We had a very good response. The invitation still remains - if you can commit to two hours per month, please contact Rita at volunteerforthecoalition. Our organization has taken this issue to a place it has never been before - we have a NYC Council member who is drafting legislation to ban the industry. But we need all of you to be involved. We are all volunteer - no paid salaries - and we need help. I know that most of us work during the week (as I do) and have only the weekends to catch up with other things - but a two hour monthly commitment for the horses seems possible for most people - so please take this request to heart and join us. Don't leave it up to the next guy. BLINDERS: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE TRADITION See the trailer on You Tube and post comments

Please take a look at this trailer on You Tube Blinders: The Truth Behind the Tradition. This is just a taste of the actual documentary, which is very powerful. The film was produced by Donny Moss of McMoss Productions Please forward this link to friends and please make supportive comments. The other side has let their opinions be known! CBS TV - HORSE-CARRIAGE SEGMENT Results of online poll Channel 2 (NYC) aired a segment on the horse-drawn carriage controversy on Monday and Tuesday, November 5th and 6th. We were not pleased with the piece because it gave one of the owner/drivers the opportunity to make many unchallenged statements. However, regardless of the almost one sidedness of the piece, there was a poll on the CBS website asking if carriage horses should be banned. This is straight from the "horse's mouth:" - Seventy-three percent of those responded said horse-drawn carriages should be banned in New York City. Twenty-seven

percent said they should not be banned. STANDING UP FOR THE CITY'S CARRIAGE HORSES Letters to the editor - November 8, 2007 Am-NY - As the holiday season approaches, some tourists will want to take that deceptively romantic horse-drawn carriage ride through congested areas of midtown Manhattan. Pulling overloaded carriages on asphalt for nine hours a day in cold weather is miserable enough for the horses. Add exhaust fumes, holiday traffic and startling noises and, well, you have a recipe for disaster. After the death of yet another carriage horse in September and a City Comptroller' s audit revealing horrible working conditions, you would think that the Mayor and City Council would have learned something. Well, one courageous lawmaker has. In early December, City Council Member Tony Avella will offer a bill to ban horse-drawn carriages. Without support from city residents, the carriage horse industry's friends in the Bloomberg

administration and the City Council will see to it that the bill dies in committee. --Jill Weitz, Bronx EDITED ENDING - Unfortunately, the actual letter was edited and ended with a positive note. It said that we must take action now and tell our Council members, Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg that it can no longer be business as usual. Horses do not belong on city streets and it is time for the carriage horse industry to go into the history books. THE POLL FROM AM-NY & NEWSDAY - UPDATE asks "Should horse-drawn carriages be banned? http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-horses0907-poll,0,4132251.poll This poll is still up so if you have not voted - please do so now. It is online on both the Am-NY and Newsday web sites. As of Sunday November 11, 2007 at 1:45 PM, there were 1,598 total responses. The

results were: 1,525 votes for YES - 95.4% and 73 responses for NO - 4.6%. Although the poll states that the results are not scientific, this poll has been up for over one month and the results have always significantly favored a ban of the horse drawn carriage industry. The people have spoken and I hope the Council is listening. Between the AM-NY poll and the CBS poll, it is clear that the majority of New Yorkers do not want the carriage industry in NYC.