Actor Liam Neeson Wrangles With de Blasio Over Horse-Drawn Carriages, Sticks Up for Drivers Who Would Lose Jobs

Liam Neeson is best known for
fighting Nazis and Siths and sex traffickers, but the action hero’s
latest foe is of a decidedly more mundane variety.
Neeson is currently battling New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio
over the mayor’s proposed ban on horse-drawn carriages in NYC. Over
the weekend, Neeson escorted more than a dozen City Council members
on a tour of a Manhattan horse stable.

He had invited de Blasio along, too, but the mayor declined. “He
should have manned up and come,” said Neeson.

Upon taking office in January 2014, de Blasio announced
that one of his top priorities was
“to quickly and aggressively” eradicate horse-drawn
carriages from the New York City landscape. The mayor said
he would replace the “inhumane” option with “electric,
vintage-replica tourist-friendly vehicles.” 

“That’s exactly what New York needs, more cars,” scoffed Neeson
on Sunday’s stable tour. “This experiment has been tried with
electric cars in San Francisco: Failed, abysmally.” 

As
New York magazine points out, “there is no shortage of
celebrity animal-rights activists who support Mayor de Blasio’s
plan,” but Neeson is one of the first celebrities to side with “the
300 plus drivers and stable workers who may be put out of work by
the ban.” On the tour, Neeson and company met with both carriage
drivers and animal caretakers to see how horses were “well cared
for.”

Neeson also suggested that something other than animal welfare
might be motivating de Blasio and others who support doing away
with the carriages—and their associated horse stables. “The great
white elephant in the room,” said Neeson, is the “four prime
locations on the West Side of New York that realtors must be
salivating to get their hands on.”