Voters in Bar Harbor, Maine, have put a lid on cruise-ship passengers, and businesses are worried about their future

Shops on Main Street in Bar Harbor, Maine
(Photo by Robert F. Bukaty, The Associated Press)

Bar Harbor, Maine, is known for its scenic views of sea and mountains, but the battle for who gets to see them has been brewing for years: "A high-stakes, deeply emotional dispute over an effort to restrict the flow of what many people consider the economic lifeblood of Bar Harbor," reports Thomas Farragher of The Boston Globe. "A new ordinance went into effect early last month that limits the number of passengers who can disembark in Bar Harbor each day to 1,000, a response to complaints that more than 150 cruise ships were overwhelming this picturesque port during the cruise season. Local voters last fall approved the cap by a vote of 1,780 to 1,273, despite efforts by the town's planning board and Warrant Committee, which urged the local electorate to reject it."

The vote has local officials "pondering what this new economic landscape might look like, because the smaller ships with 1,000 or fewer guests account for just 5 percent of the annual ship schedule," Farragher notes. Kristi Bond, owner of FishMaine Restaurant Group and president of the Association to Preserve & Protect Local Livelihoods, told him, "We’ve built our town on wanting the tourists to come. Our town economy is getting 20 to 30 million dollars pumped into it with these people coming to our town. They come at 8 in the morning and they’re gone at 5 o’clock at night. I just don’t understand how it makes sense to anyone."

But Charles Sidman, who spent his career as a biomedical researcher, told Farragher that the cruise industry "is causing enormous damage . . . They’ve had totally improper monopolies granted by the town, and they want to protect them . . . On a busy cruise-ship day here, it’s like Times Square.’" As you might expect, there's a lawsuit. Businesses "claim the new restrictions jeopardize their livelihood and break federal laws," reports Victoria DeCoster of the Mount Desert Islander.

Farragher writes, "Kevin Sutherland, Bar Harbor’s town manager, said local frustration with congestion was the chief propellant for the new ordinance that took effect Dec. 8, a move local businesses fighting the measure have said immediately renders the town an unavailable destination port-of-call." Sutherland said, “For years, if you look at the cruise ship visits from the early 2000s, this community embraced and actually went out and asked the cruise ships to start doing tours in the Northeast. . . . This is the only thing I’ve been dealing with for almost a year." Farragher notes, "But over time, some residents say, it has all become simply overwhelming."

Bar Harbor is on the Gulf of Maine. (Google map)

The town's economy has relied on cruise income, "The town receives passenger fees. If a 2,000-passenger boat shows up, the town collects about $5 per lower-berth capacity of that boat," Farragher reports. Sutherland told Farrar, "So, the town gets $10,000 for that boat. A million dollars has a big impact on our ability to hire a harbor master and his staff. It allows us to address some of our capital needs. It takes care of our sidewalk work. It takes care of some of our downtown aesthetics."

This season, "New rules are on the book," Farragher writes. "And those behind the counters and at the cash registers of local businesses say Bar Harbor’s economic future is hanging in the balance."