Liam Neeson to Be Protested by Horse Advocates

Actor Will Be Targeted at His Upper West Side Condo

For Immediate Release:
April 18, 2014

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Holding signs reading, “Liam Neeson, Stop Supporting Cruelty,” members of PETA and NYCLASS will greet residents and passersby in front of the actor’s Upper West Side condo building amid posters of New York City carriage accidents that have left horses dead and people in the hospital. Neeson has been on a public tirade against Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to retire the horses, and now fed-up New Yorkers are bringing the debate home.

Where:  Park Millennium condos, 111 W. 67^th St., New York

When:   Saturday, April 19, noon

PETA, NYCLASS, and the ASPCA support Mayor de Blasio’s plan to replace horse-drawn carriages with safer, eco-friendly classic cars. All the horses will be adopted, and the carriage drivers will be able to shift to a vehicle that operates in all weather extremes and accommodates more passengers. A prototype was unveiled at the New York International Auto Show on Thursday.

“Despite this thoughtful plan, which will retire all the horses and provide the carriage workers with jobs, Neeson and his carriage cronies—who are working with horse-slaughter proponents—are willfully misleading the public about the routine cruelty that horses in New York’s carriage industry endure,” says PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews. “Neeson’s nonsensical suggestion that Central Park carve up hundreds of public acres to house horses for a private industry is one that has been shot down for decades by the Central Park Conservancy.”

Major world cities such as London, Paris, and Toronto stopped licensing commercial horse-drawn carriages in their city centers decades ago because of the same safety, sanitation, and welfare concerns—even though carriage rides were a part of their histories.

Neeson is the only star fighting to keep the horses working in Midtown traffic. Anjelica Huston and Adrien Brody urged the previous city administration to end the carriage trade. Peter Dinklage, Lea Michele, and other New Yorkers appear in this new PETA video supporting the mayor’s plan. P!nk, who wrote this guest blog post for PETA, even offered to adopt the first horse to be retired.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.