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.
I'm not exactly a wiz kid at math but I fear you made a miscalculation when you categorized the Smallidge Point crowd as belonging to the 0.5 percent club. My guess is many of them belong to the 0.000000000005 percent club. And if you think being a journalist gets you the cold shoulder from them you ought to try mowing their lawns!
Well.... Amsterdam is not banning cruiseships.. They've voted for a 5 year plan to move cruiseships away from the downtown area and to a a brand new terminal further away from the city center. The construction of the new terminal will begin shortly