BAR HARBOR, Feb. 16, 2020 - By a vote of 6-1, the Town Council last night voted against member Gary Friedmann’s motion for a 30 percent reduction of cruise ships this season.
A full cruise ship season is estimated to carry 290,000 passengers to Bar Harbor in 2022. The last time there was a full season was 2019 before the pandemic when substantial overcrowding led citizens to push the council to take action.
A total of 63 percent of respondents said in a townwide survey in the spring of 2021 that the 2019 season had too many days with cruise ships, while 66 percent felt that the average number of cruise ship passengers was “too many.” The survey was proposed by Friedmann and received 1,533 responses, far more than the 400-500 expected.
The survey was conducted before the record 2021 season, when Acadia National Park saw a 12.5 percent increase in visits and exceeded 4 million visits for the first time.
Last fall the cruise ship industry threatened to sue the town if it reduced cruise ship visits.
Last night, Town Manager Kevin Sutherland told the council he did not succeed in negotiations for 2022 and urged the council to work on 2023. The council supported his request to form a small committee to work on a 2023 strategy which will include members Val Peacock and Jill Goldthwait.
A citizens group led by resident Charles Sidman has lost faith in the Town Council and is seeking to petition for a vote to reduce or ban cruise ships.
It is unclear to me why the Town Council rejected the 33% reduction that had been negotiated. Perfect maybe not, but better than what will be happening.
Our family visited MDI for a out 40!years. We are sorry about these issues and have no answers but hope the dumping of garbage and other things is addressed. It is so beautiful there and we do miss coming. On another note the cruise ship.industry seems to be having issues and has abandoned passengers in some ports. Has that possibility been considered.