Anti Horse Carriage Fundraiser Canceled

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New York City Councilmember Tony Avella, who is running for mayor in 2009, told reporters that the horse drawn carriage industry had threatened an Irish bar when they discovered that an event to raise funds for the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages was to take place there on October 14.

Avella made his charges at a press conference held outside O'Flaherty's Ale House on 46th Street in Manhattan on Friday, September 19. He bashed the horse drawn carriage industry, blaming them for the cancellation of a fundraiser for the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages at the bar in October.

Avella, who has proposed a bill to shut down the carriages in New York, said he wants to put an end of the "inhumane treatment and risk of serious injury or death" to both horses and people.

Tadhg Healy, manager at O'Flaherty's, told the Irish Voice on Tuesday that the bar received a worrying call from an elderly woman saying she was upset about the fundraiser being held at the bar saying, "There might be a riot outside the place."

However, Healy added there was nothing set in stone regarding the fundraiser and he didn't feel the call was threatening. "It might have been more like some friendly advice," said Healy.

Upon discovering that the event was in fact to raise funds for the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages, Healy said he cancelled the fundraiser. "When they booked it at the beginning I thought it was a fundraiser in the traditional sense. I was kind of blindsided," he said, adding if he had initially know who the organization were when booking the event, he wouldn't have taken the booking.

"Some of (the horse drawn carriage drivers) are just from down the road from where I grew up and the majority of them are of Irish descent," he said.

Upset that he has been misquoted by the media and the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages, Healy said when he called up the woman who booked the event to tell her it was cancelled she said to him, "I don't blame you. I don't want my windows broken either.'

"Those were her words and I got misquoted on it," said Healy.

Carolyn Daly, spokesperson for the horse drawn carriage industry, said it's the people from the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages that are "harassing, intimidating and stalking" the carriage drivers, and not the carriage drivers threatening the bar. "The animal activists have unacceptable behavior," she said.

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