City ordinances rein in carriage rides downtown

Owners of a new horse-drawn carriage business in downtown Las Vegas expected a routine approval of their business license Wednesday.

Instead, they ran smack into some unequivocal language in city ordinances.

Las Vegas Carriage now must wait at least until late October to start the rides, because that's how long it will take the city to change the code.

The business had requested waivers to two requirements: that the carriages have seat belts, and that the horses be certified as acclimated to street noise.

But the ordinance doesn't have any wiggle room, said City Attorney Brad Jerbic, who advised Las Vegas City Council members not to approve the waivers.

"I fear to do otherwise would put the council in jeopardy of violating its own code," Jerbic said, which could leave the city vulnerable to a costly lawsuit if there was a carriage accident.

Robert Humpherys, the proprietor of Las Vegas Carriage, said he can't insure the carriages if they have seat belts. If a horse bolts, he said, it's better if passengers are able to jump free.

"There's no carriage company in the whole country that requires seat belts," he said. "I don't even know how that got in there."

Humpherys operates the carriage business at Floyd Lamb State Park. The plan for downtown calls for carriage rides of between 15 and 50 minutes through the area's historic neighborhoods.

City staff immediately will start work to amend city code to remove the requirements. The change could be ready by mid-October, and the carriage business could start operating shortly after it's approved.

Council members urged all involved parties to work quickly. "This is a great thing for downtown Las Vegas," Ward 6 Councilman Steven Ross said. "I've been looking forward to this."