Carriage Horse Driver Pleads Guilty to DWI; Suspended for 30 Days

On March 3, Saverio Colarusso, a carriage driver from Manhattan's West 38th Street stable, appeared at the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) court in response to summonses issued by ASPCA Humane Law Enforcement Agents. The 49-year-old Queens resident pled guilty to operating a horse-drawn carriage while under the influence and received a $175 fine and a 30-day suspension of his carriage driver's license.

Colarusso was busted on January 5, when Special Agent Richie Ryan witnessed him drinking from a bottle of Michelob Light while operating his carriage on Central Park South. Further investigation turned up a number of empty bottles in his carriage. Special Agent Ryan issued him a DCA summons for operating a carriage while "under the influence of intoxicating liquors," section 2-212 (q) 6 of the Rules of the City of New York.

Special Agent Ryan is an equine specialist with the Humane Law Enforcement Department and his duties include monitoring the care and working conditions of New York City's carriage and riding horses. He enforces state and local carriage horse protection laws. 

The ASPCA believes that our city's unique environment is incapable of ensuring that horses and their human passengers stay healthy and safe, and we have been fighting to get the horses off our noisy, congested streets. To learn more about the fundamental cruelty of New York City's carriage horse industry—and to see proposed humane alternatives and solutions—please visit our partner agency, NYCLASS.