Bar Harbor will vote on an ordinance regarding cruise ship passengers

BAR HARBOR, Maine (WABI) – Following lawsuits against the city following a 2022 vote to limit the number of cruise ship passengers, Bar Harbor residents will be asked next Tuesday if they want to set a higher cap on the number of passengers allowed ashore each year may come. day.

“We have a demand for the city citizens to repeal a current land use ordinance, which is the current way we manage cruise ship visits in the city of Bar Harbor,” said Bar Habor City Council President Valerie Peacock.

“What will be on the ballot next Tuesday is whether citizens will vote to repeal the 2022 legislation. If the citizens vote to cancel, the council has already adopted an alternate set of rules that we believe would be disastrous for democracy in Bar Harbor,” said Bar Harbor resident Charles Sidman.

Amid lawsuits from both sides of the issue, the city is taking a new approach to cruise ship management with this ballot question, although some believe this was already set in 2022.

“Our staff, our legal team and the municipality have worked together to create a new system for managing cruise ship visits, i.e. based on a licensing contract. So our approach requires that cruise ships have a permit to visit the city of Bar Harbor and a reservation to visit the city of Bar Harbor, and within that contract and reservation system are the limits for a limit, including a daily limit of 3,200,” explained Peacock out.

“They scared the city council. The city council doesn’t know what to do when they get sued, and now they’re being sued by that party for the restrictions, and they’re being sued by the citizens, aka myself, for not following and enforcing the laws. Sidman said.

If passed, the new ordinance would also shift the burden of enforcing the limit from pier owners to cruise lines.

“So we’ve been in court defending the constitutionality of the ordinance, and working on figuring out the rules for its implementation, and the Council started to encounter more process questions and challenges in actually implementing it, so we directed staff to bring back an alternative to that land use ordinance,” Peacock added.

“In fact, we sued the city for rewriting, which I would say is illegally rewriting the ordinance and directing their employees not to implement it. I mean, how does the city government do that? There is law on the books, and they have admitted publicly and in writing that they are changing the law. They are not adhering to it and have told their employees not to enforce it. Come on,” Sidman explained.

If Article 4 is adopted, the new regulation would also include monthly and annual passenger limits.