BRUSSELS.- It started a number of years ago with angry remarks from tourists every now and again. But in recent years, the comments flew all the time, with people shouting, “Shame!” at Thibault Danthine, a horse-drawn carriage operator in Brussels, as they walked by.

“Ten years ago, that never happened,” said Danthine, a self-described horse lover. “At the end, it was every day.”

Exhausted by being accused of perpetrating animal cruelty, Danthine decided to sell his five horses and use the proceeds to buy two electric carriages, designed to look like an early model of an electric vehicle developed in the 1800s by inventor Robert Anderson, instead. In June, Brussels became the first European capital to offer daily tours on electric carriages.

Danthine, the city’s only carriage operator, said he had no interest in becoming the ambassador of a movement to ban horse-drawn carriages. Still, his decision puts Brussels in the ranks of a growing number of cities worldwide that have decided to shun such carriages, concerned about the horses’ welfare.

Once Danthine sold his horses to people who lived in the nearby countryside, the city agreed it was time to transition and will not issue any new licenses, even though it has not officially banned horse-drawn carriages.

“Things change, and we need to accept that,” said Philippe Close, the mayor of Brussels, in an interview at City Hall, a building in the city’s ornate Grand Place that was originally constructed in the 15th century. “We try to find a balance: respect for the animals and also discovery of an ancient city with old traditions.”

Other cities have felt much the same. In recent years, Montreal, Prague, Barcelona, Spain, have all banned or restricted horse-drawn carriage rides. (In Prague, horse-drawn carriage rides are still offered, even though they have been banned, a city official said.)

In the United States, officials in Chicago voted to ban horse-drawn carriages starting in 2021, following Salt Lake City as well as Key West and Palm Beach in Florida, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the animal rights group also known as PETA.

New York, where the horse-drawn carriage industry has existed for more than 150 years, has resisted. A carriage driver was charged with animal cruelty last year after a horse, Ryder, collapsed on a busy midtown Manhattan street in August 2022.

The incident reignited calls from animal rights groups, residents, celebrities and politicians to ban the industry. But a bill before the New York City Council that sought to replace horse-drawn carriages with electric versions went nowhere.

Robert Holden, a New York City Council member who two months ago reintroduced Ryder’s Law, a bill to ban horse-drawn carriages in New York, said it was imperative that New York follow the lead of Brussels and other cities. “The worst place for horse carriages would be in Manhattan because it’s so overcrowded,” he said.

He was not optimistic that the bill would pass, he said. “It’s going to take another horse collapsing and dying,” he said. “Or a horse running wild that hurts somebody.”

Teodora Zglimbea, a PETA campaign manager, said using horses for carriage rides in cities was abusive and unnecessary. “There are ambulances, fireworks and all sorts of loud noises, and accidents happen all the time,” she said. “There’s just no need to do that anymore.”

Danthine said he had no regrets about making the switch.

Two months in, he said, business is booming. Some people say, “Oh, that’s a pity, it’s less charming than a horse,” Danthine said. But just as many tourists have signed up for electric carriage rides as they did for horse-drawn carriage rides, and he no longer has to pay the high costs of caring for horses or worry about finding multilingual tour guides who have experience with horses, he said.

With temperatures rising in Brussels, Danthine said he was having to cancel an increasing number of tours each summer because it was too hot for the animals. Now, with electric carriages, he can operate every day. He plans to buy a third carriage next year.

This month, tourists in the Grand Place, in the center of Brussels, took photographs of the two electric carriages he now owns and signed up for 30-minute tours, which cost 70 euros (almost $77) and include visits to the Manneken Pis and the Palais de Justice.

Across the Grand Place, officials rode in a horse-drawn carriage, now used only for official celebrations for Meyboom, an annual tradition that dates to 1308.

Ayyob Al-Marzooqi, who was visiting Brussels from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, with his wife and children, said that horse-drawn carriages, without a doubt, would add to the atmosphere of the Grand Place. “When talking about 17th century, 16th century, whatever, this is related to horses and wars and these things,” said Al-Marzooqi, a government employee.

Still, he said he preferred the electric carriage ride he took in Brussels to the horse-drawn carriage rides he and his wife had taken in Vienna and Mumbai, India. He said he appreciated not having to smell the horses while on the tour. Moreover, in a city like Brussels, with narrow, cobbled streets and hills, “going up and down, up and down, this is too heavy for the animals to carry,” he said.

His daughter, Hind Al-Marzooqi, 13, said she also preferred the electric carriage. “It connects the past with the future.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.