SPECIAL REPORT: How other MDI towns banned cruise ships as Bar Harbor dithers
NORTHEAST HARBOR, Jan. 3, 2022 - On Sept. 23, 2016, the cruise ship Pearl Mist anchored off Bear Island just outside of the harbor here and transported 175 tourists by tender to the town marina where they spent several hours meandering through the picturesque village.
Sue Spoelhof, general manager of the Kimball Shop on Main Street, told the Islander her store did a lot of business that day. “And they weren’t buying T-shirts and trinkets,” she said. “They were buying higher-end merchandise and having it shipped home.
That no doubt sent the adrenaline flying for Main Street businesses, but it was also the last time a cruise ship visited any of the three towns on MDI outside of Bar Harbor.
The reaction was swift. Fear of cruise ships metastasizing throughout the southern towns on the island led to bans in Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor and Tremont.
No one had to hire fancy pants maritime lawyers. Any suggestion that the towns did not have the legal authority was dismissed.
Anne Napier was chair of the Southwest Harbor harbor committee when the Pearl Mist came calling a year later after being rebuffed in Northeast Harbor. The ship wanted to transport passengers to the commercial dock at Beal’s Lobster Pound where buses would take them to tour Acadia National Park.
At two well-attended meetings in July 2017, residents called out Bar Harbor as an example of cruise ship overload, the Islander reported. At an Aug. 17 special town meeting, SWH residents approved a 180-day moratorium on cruise ship activity. The vote was unanimous.
That gave Napier’s committee time to develop an ordinance preventing ships from landing more than 50 passengers.
“This ordinance used a Maine statute which allows any town to regulate all public and private docks to the mid-tide level as long as the town has not received Federal funding” for a number of years, she stated.
Tremont borrowed the same language to codify its ban in 2021.
Bar Harbor clearly has more at stake than the three smaller towns which may explain why the town manager and council are in no hurry to enforce the new ordinance passed overwhelmingly by voters Nov. 8 to reduce cruise ship visitors to 1,000 a day from 5,500.
At the council meeting Dec. 20, Town Manager Kevin Sutherland said he’s going to need six months to come up with an enforcement plan, even though the citizens petition was made public last March.
No one challenged him on why he didn’t begin contingencies in March once the petition became public.
Instead, Sutherland proposed a “moratorium” on implementation.
Member Jill Goldthwait said she did not intend to “drag this thing out,” and then proceeded to do exactly that, citing obscure maritime laws regulating disembarking of crew members and adding to the myriad of concerns already piled on by harbor master Chris Wharff and Sutherland.
That got member Gary Friedmann to remind fellow members and Sutherland that voters were clear in their overwhelming action No. 8, prompting Goldthwait to say, “that doesn’t override federal law.”
Friedmann turned to Sutherland and told him he should not be using the word “moratorium” in any discussion of implementation of the ordinance. Sutherland backed off and said, “I wouldn't ask council to do that. I'm just trying to recognize a timeframe in which I think it's reasonable to say I can have something for you in a six-month window, because that's typically what I'm allowed.'“
The entire exchange is available here starting two hours and 26 minutes into the meeting.
https://townhallstreams.com/stream.php?location_id=37&id=42169
Friedmann and member Joe Minutolo are a small minority who have consistently responded to citizen concerns about cruise ships. Friedmann made the motion in 2020 for a townwide survey which revealed that 63 percent of residents believe cruise ships hurt the town.
Council chair Val Peacock came close to an outright prevarication where she claimed the citizens petitioners responded to the letter written to Sutherland by the harbor master with his laundry list of concerns as evidence “we are on the right track, that we are asking the right questions and doing the right thing.”
Citizen petitioner Charles Sidman called Peacock’s representation of his email “ridiculous.”
He indicated he is losing patience. “It takes about a week to draft the necessary permit language.”
The QSJ published an account of Sidman’s email on Dec. 20 in which he questioned why this is being handled as a law enforcement matter instead of something under the code enforcement officer since the petition was for a land use ordinance. (the harbor master is a lieutenant in the police department.)
Sidman has also called for the Cruise Ship Committee to be eliminated calling it “an egregious instance of institutionalized Conflict of Interest.
“Most seats on this Committee were allocated to industry representatives, who thereby have had entirely undue influence on Town policy in this area (thus the recent Citizens Initiative.) The Town Council is capable of setting cruise ship policy without the guidance of a conflicted, biased and self-serving Committee.”
As if on cue, the cruise ship committee is scheduled to meet Thursday.
The Town Council is scheduled to meet tonight with no cruise ship matters on its agenda.
At its Dec. 20 meeting, the council voted unanimously for a proclamation thanking outgoing director of the chamber of commerce, Alf Anderson, who had an outsized role in catering to the cruise ship industry.
The QSJ asked Peacock by email for the criteria for nominating folks for such proclamations as they seem to favor tourism people. She did not respond.
I can think of no one who deserved public recognition in 2022 more than Charles Sidman and the late Arthur Greif, the true representatives of citizens in Bar Harbor.
Friedmann pressed the council and Sutherland to move faster to respect the voters’ bidding.
“We got a pretty strong message from the voters in November about this a month ago. And I think that they're going to be looking really closely at the council and the town manager in terms of how we make real and honest efforts to implement this.
I served on the cruise ship committee years ago for the town of Bar Harbor and as I remember the other members on the committee had a financial benefit from the cruise ships. I resigned when I realized it was a waste of my time.
Reading from Juneau, Alaska. I've been following Bar Harbor's campaign to limit cruise ship tourism with interest. I was unaware of the bans you mention. Inspiring. Thanks for your reporting, and to all of the Maine residents who are truly standing up to the cruise industry.