BREAKING NEWS: Amsterdam latest to ban cruise ships

BAR HARBOR, July 21, 2023 - CNN and other news outlets just reported that Amsterdam’s city council has approved a proposal banning “polluting” cruise ships as part of the city’s latest move to clamp down on overtourism.

A spokesperson for Amsterdam Deputy Mayor Hester van Buren, who has responsibility for the city’s port, told CNN that the council approved a proposal on Thursday to close the city’s cruise ship terminal.

This is latest in an inexorable trend. Destinations such as Venice, Barcelona and Amsterdam are not willing to risk their historic neighborhoods to the crushing crowds of cruise ships and their fouling of the climate.

The QSJ has reported for more than three years on how the cruise ship industry has held the local town council in a mesmerizing state for more than a decade. The New England fishing village that once was Bar Harbor is now unrecognizable to anyone older than 50 who grew up here.

Town officials, lawyers and citizen petitioners have just completed a brutal three-day trial in which local restaurants, hoteliers, ship pilots and a single passenger tender service claimed their self interest was more paramount than the interest of 1,780 voters - 58 percent of those who voted Nov. 8, 2022 - to invoke a daily cap of 1,000 cruise ship passengers in a town with only 5,500 residents.

U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker will decide later this year on the suit by the businesses which seek to overturn the citizens ordinance.