A month after police laid the first-ever charges tied to ongoing protests of horse-drawn carriages in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., (NOTL) the town mayor is asking operators to do their business elsewhere on weekends.
In a release on Tuesday, Lord Mayor Betty Disero asked drivers to relocate their passenger pickups to Byron and King streets instead of from their traditional spot in front of the Prince of Wales Hotel at King and Picton.
The new location would put the carriages at the edge of Simcoe Park parallel to the King Street Gallery.
“Council wants to help dial back the escalation in the rallies and protests we’ve seen over the past several weeks,” Disero said in her statement.
“We know we won’t satisfy everyone, but even as we may not see eye to eye, we can move to less confrontation.”
Niagara police say the protests have been going on since 2017, and have been centralized in a typically busy part of the downtown area of Niagara-On-The-Lake.
Police say the recent assault charges were laid against a passenger in a carriage who became entangled with a protestor near King and Picton around 1 p.m. on Saturday, July 25.
Negotiations between police and protesters have been happening between 2018 and 2019. However, proposed peace agreements have gone unsigned.
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