De Blasio gets bombarded by animal rights activists
Animal-rights activists turned on Mayor de Blasio with a vengeance Sunday — publicly heckling him for failing to fulfill his 2013 campaign pledge to ban horse-drawn carriages from the city’s streets.
The protest by NYCLASS outside a Greek Independence Day event in Midtown came little more than a week after federal and state officials said they wouldn’t prosecute de Blasio over pay-to-play suspicions involving hefty political donations from the activists and others.
It also came as a fellow attendee, potential mayoral challenger John Catsimatidis, blasted the closing of the corruption probes.
“It’s not what I think. It’s what the people think. The people think that not everything was right,” billionaire Gristedes owner Catsimatidis said.
“It just ended too abruptly.”
NYCLASS members chanted “Keep your promise, Mayor de Blasio!” as Hizzoner walked along Central Park South to the famed Plaza Hotel.
After speaking inside the iconic Oak Room for about seven minutes, the mayor emerged and was stopped in his tracks by NYCLASS director Edita Birnkrant.
She demanded that he live up to his vow that he’d ban carriage horses on “Day One” of his administration.
“You know I’ve put a lot of energy out to get this done,” de Blasio said as protesters blocked his path to the Greek Independence Day parade.
“I did not have the kind of support I was hoping for in the Council,” he said.
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“I have to fight for it too, and I will. I have to put energy into it and I will, but I need more council members who are not afraid to stand up.”
Birnkrant said afterward: “We’ll see.”
“We’re not just going to blindly believe him because we made that mistake in the past. We’re going to hold him to it.”
NYCLASS board members Wendy Neu and Steve Nislick donated at least $134,900 to de Blasio’s campaign and his since-shuttered nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York.
Proposed legislation to restrict carriage horses to Central Park died in February 2016 when the council cancelled a vote on the bill.
A council spokeswoman said there were no plans to revive it.
Catsimatidis, who lost the 2013 Republican primary race for mayor to Joe Lhota, said he would decide in the next few weeks whether to run for mayor again.