A new ordinance went into effect early last month limiting the number of passengers who can disembark at Bar Harbor to 1,000 a day in response to complaints that more than 150 cruise ships swamped the picturesque harbor during cruise season.
Local voters approved the cap last fall by a vote of 1,780 to 1,273, despite efforts by the town’s planning and empowerment boards to urge local voters to reject it.
Charles Sidman, a biomedical researcher by career who led the effort behind the citizens’ petition, said it was in part because the cruise ship industry “is doing a lot of damage to Bar Harbor.”
“The town granted them a completely improper monopoly, and they wanted to protect them,” Siedman told me. “The rest of town and other businesses are suffering. On a busy cruise day, it’s like Times Square.”
Now, a group of local businesses have filed a lawsuit.
Officials are pondering what this new economic landscape might look like, as smaller ships carrying 1,000 passengers or less make up only 5% of the annual ship schedule.
Residents are starting to think about what life will be like later this year when those big ships continue to sail the Atlantic rather than drop anchor in Bar Harbor.
Kristi Bond, owner of FishMaine Restaurant Group and chair of the local Livelihoods Protection Association, said: “Our town was built on the idea that tourists would come.”
“With these people coming to our town, we’re injecting $20 to $30 million into our town economy,” she said. “They come in at 8 in the morning and leave at 5 in the evening. I just don’t see how that makes sense to anyone.”
Neither did Kevin DesVeaux, owner of the West Street Café, where you can get a cup of clam chowder for $7 and a burger for $13, along with some worried words from the guy behind the counter who’s in charge of making ends meet.
“I worry that if the cruise ships don’t come back, we won’t be able to make a profit,” DesVeaux told me the other day. “Our two-month lunch hour really doesn’t make sense. The only time we’re profitable is July and August, when we have a lot of day-trippers and all the hotels are full.”
He paused before adding: “Scheduling cruises in the spring allows us to open restaurants earlier in the season. Cruises in the fall allow us to extend our season and allow us to be profitable.”
We had a chat the other day at the front table of his restaurant, overlooking the steamship dock.
“I don’t like when people paint people on cruise ships as evil,” he said. “It’s like they’re from a Stephen King novel or something. Most of these people who come here are seasoned travelers. They eat well. They spend well. They come in and leave quickly.
“As a catering business, you don’t get a better clientele than that. They’ll come in for a few drinks, put down a lobster roll, and walk out the door. They don’t linger. That’s why you can ship more The reason for multiple people.They are mission driven.
Soon those who are able to complete this tour will have more room to enjoy the scenery and hike the trails along Frenchman’s Cove.
Bal Harbor town manager Kevin Sutherland said local dissatisfaction with traffic congestion was a major driver of the new ordinance, which took effect Dec. 8, and local businesses opposed to the measure said it would immediately cost the town become an unviable destination port of call.
“What’s Yogi Berra’s statement?” Sutherland asked me when I stopped by the other day. “‘This place is so crowded. Doesn’t anyone go there anymore? That’s what it’s really about.
It’s been a long and interesting municipal journey, he said.
“Over the years, if you look at cruise ship visits in the early 2000s, the community embraced and actually went out and demanded that cruise ships start doing tours in the Northeast,” Sutherland said.
But over time, some residents said, it all became overwhelming.
“It’s harder to get to the grocery store,” Sutherland said, echoing opponents. “It’s harder to get to the post office. If I need to buy something near Main Street, or if I want to go out to dinner with my family, I’ll probably wait in line. If you’re a resident of a town of 5,000, that seems like a challenge. “
And there’s a lot at stake. The town charges passengers a fee. If a 2,000-passenger boat shows up, the town will charge the boat about $5 per lower berth capacity.
“So, the town gets $10,000 from that boat,” he said, noting that it equates to $1 million a year.
“A million dollars makes a big difference to our ability to hire the Harbor Master and his staff,” Sutherland said. “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 aesthetic.”
To say it was the talk of the town would be an understatement, he said.
“It was the only thing I’d dealt with for almost a year,” Sutherland told me. “I’ve done a lot for the city. We – the council and I – have done a lot to address the needs of the town. But this has risen to a level of dialogue and attention that exceeds any other project.”
Kristi Bond heard the conversations and weighed the concerns.
“The post office, the grocery store, the pharmacy — there’s more business in those places too,” she said. “Taxi. You name it. They all get business from whoever comes here. Whether they come by car or bus or they come.
“But we’ve learned from the past that off-season is the hardest time to get guests. That’s why in the 1990s, the town went out and tried to figure out a way to get more people here in the off-season. Cruise ships started coming here .”
All of this is now on the local agenda, at the dinner table, and fodder for urgent debate.
“I’m not one to push the envelope,” Kevin DesVeaux of West Street Café told me. “I know you can’t have three cruise ships in port. It doesn’t work very well. I’m for reasonable restrictions. Putting two 5,000-passenger cruise ships in port isn’t going to work for anyone.
“But before this petition came along, the numbers put forward by the Cruise Ship Board worked well. The town handled it well.”
But now, new rules have been introduced.
Workers behind counters and at cash registers at local businesses say the economic future of Bal Harbor is uncertain.
Thomas Farragher is a columnist for The Globe. He can be reached at thomas.farragher@globe.com.
