Residents of Bar Harbor will be given the opportunity this November to overturn a 2022 ordinance capping the number of cruise ship passengers allowed to disembark per day at 1,000 and replace it with an updated set of rules that take a markedly different approach to cruise ship regulation.
If the referendum is approved, the 2022 ordinance would be replaced by one allowing for more than three times this amount, with variable monthly limits intended to better reflect the nature of tourism in Maine.
In November of 2022, Bar Harbor voters approved — with 58 percent support — a new law limiting the number of cruise ship passengers allowed to disembark into the town on any given day to 1,000.
Prior to the implementation of the this ordinance, Bar Harbor permitted 3,500 passengers to disembark from cruise ships daily, just a few hundred more than the 3,200 proposed under the new rules.
Raising the cap on cruise ship passengers is not, however, the only change that would be implemented by the proposed ordinance if approved by voters next month.
Currently, cruise ships coordinate with eligible dock owners when coming to Bar Harbor, but under the ordinance up for consideration, cruise lines would need to work with town officials instead.
“It requires cruise ships to have a license to visit the town of Bar Harbor and to disembark,” explained Bar Harbor Town Council Chair Valerie Peacock, according to WABI TV. “That license is memorialized into a contract, and inside of that license includes all the caps and the reservation system for cruise ships.”
Click Here to See a Sample Ballot for Bar Harbor
Under the proposed ordinance, initial license and contracts with the Town would run from November 5, 2024 through November 5, 2029, with the ability to renew in one-year increments after that.
Cruise lines with a valid license and contract would be able to reserve dates to dock in Bar Harbor using an electronic reservation system, covering both “anchorage space” and “authorization to disembark passengers on a specific day.”
The ordinance defines the cruise ship season as lasting from April 24 to November 7 each year.
There would be monthly and multi-monthly caps on the number of passengers allowed to disembark in the town, ranging from 5,000 for April to 55,000 for September and October combined.
There would also be an annual limit of 200,000 passengers with a daily limit of three ships in port.
A total of 20,000 passengers would be allowed to disembark from May to August, and 5,000 would be permitted in November.
Cruise ships would not be permitted in port on the Fourth of July, and in addition to this, there would be a ten “guaranteed ship free days” in both September and October.
Although these dates have not yet been determined, they would need to be provided by the Town on or before the execution date of their contract with the cruise lines.
Ships with a capacity of two hundred passengers or less would be exempt from both the daily and monthly caps, as well as the guaranteed ship free days, but would be counted toward the yearly cap, Fourth of July blackout, and three-ship daily limit.
Click Here to Read the Full Proposed Ordinance
According to a Frequently Asked Questions document posted to the Town of Bar Harbor website, the contracts with cruise lines will require both Town Council and Town Meeting participation to be altered.
“This means that no special interest group can force an issue onto the ballot and that the Town Council cannot unilaterally change the terms and conditions of the contract simply by amending [the ordinance],” they explained.
The “substantive terms and conditions” of the contract may be amended as early as Year 2. If changes are approved, the cruise lines would have the remainder of the contract term to decide if they wanted to extend their agreement or let their contracts expire. For the remainder of their initial five-year contract period, they would operate under the old terms and conditions.
Ships with a capacity of more than 3,200 will not be permitted to dock in Bar Harbor whatsoever under the proposed ordinance.
According to the Town’s website, twenty-five of these “mega ships” came to Bar Harbor in 2022, accounting for more than 95,000 visitors, equating to about one third of all visitations that year.
Any cruise ship booked and confirmed prior to the November 2022 passage of the initial ordinance would be grandfathered from these new requirements and allowed to dock despite potential conflicts, including those that have a capacity over 3,200.
That said, such ships will be counted toward the disembarkation limitations outlined in the ordinance as they are applied to other ships.
Click Here to Read the Full FAQ Document
Placing limitations on cruise tourism has proven controversial for Bar Harbor in recent years, spurring two separate legal battles since 2022.
About a month after voters approved the ordinance, a group of businesses filed a complaint against the town, alleging that the ordinance was in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, suggesting that cruise ships fall under the category of interstate commerce.
Charles Sidman — the man behind the original 2022 citizens initiative effort to implement these limitations — has also taken legal action against Bar Harbor over the Council’s decision in March to allow ships with more than 1,000 passengers to dock in Bar Harbor this season if they were booked prior to the November 2022 vote.
According to an update posted on the Town’s website in September, the Maine Superior Court granted their motion to dismiss one of the complaints in Sidman’s case against them.
The Town also noted that on September 10, Golden Anchor, L.C., doing business as Harborside Pier, filed a complaint in Hancock County Superior Court regarding Bar Harbor’s implementation of the 2022 referendum.
With respect to the proposed ordinance on the ballot this November, the Town has indicated that they have “obtained signed releases that [its] model of regulation will not be legally challenged by pier owners, tenders, or cruise lines.”
“It also achieves significant reductions to cruise tourism in Bar Harbor from historically high levels experienced by the community,” the Town wrote.
In September of 2023, the Bar Harbor Town Council voted unanimously to dissolve its Cruise Ship Committee, which was originally intended to help “grow and manage the cruise ship-based tourism and related activities within Bar Harbor,” according to a statement provided to the Maine Wire at the time by Councilor Kyle Shank.
According to the Bangor Daily News (BDN), many councilors expressed support for the committee’s purpose — and for the work done by those who served on it — but felt that it had outlived its usefulness.
[RELATED: Bar Harbor Town Council Unanimously Dissolves Cruise Ship Committee]
Councilors also told the news outlet at the time that they felt the town ought to have tourism committee geared toward balancing the needs of residents and tourists more effectively.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Shank in his statement to the Maine Wire.
Just think how much Sales tax the State is losing.
If the insufferable and pretentious residents of the overrated town of Bar Harbor don’t rescind the 1,000 cap, the cruise line should find another stop where its tourist dollars would be appreciated.
“Cruise lines with a valid license and contract ” And just what does said License and Contract cost per year, and who receives the money? Or is that non of a mere Maine citizen’s business? It certainly is not mentioned in the article.