In Bar Harbor, cruise ship debate raises questions around town’s identity
File photo / Laurie Schreiber
Bar Harbor residents are debating to what extent they want to see the return of cruise ships, after a hiatus in 2020.
As folks in Bar Harbor discuss to what extent they want to see the return of cruise ships, the discussion in some ways comes down to a question of the town’s identity.
Because of the pandemic, the town in 2020, for the first time in years, got a glimpse of what life might be like without cruise ships.
The Bar Harbor Town Council has received a wide range of community feedback on the topic. Some residents are calling for a permanent ban going forward. Many want the number of cruise ship visits scaled back, while other people said the ships are important to the local economy.
At its meeting earlier this week, the council considered ways to establish formal channels for continued communication, possibly with a survey. The goal would be to explore potential limits on the number of cruise ships or disembarking passengers for voters to consider, perhaps in time for the town meeting in June.
The topic of the town’s identity arose around a larger discussion about whether people who are present in the community seasonally — including business owners, summer residents and temporary workers — should be included in the survey.
A number of business owners who operate seasonally don’t live there year-round, noted Town Councilor Jill Goldthwait.
“But we’re suggesting that all those people will be able to weigh in through this questionnaire,” she said. “We’re letting a fairly large number of nonresident people weigh in on something that really was raised as an issue by the local community.”
Many of the issues involved revolve around a “sense of community” that people who don’t live there year-round don’t embody in the same way, she said.
But Town Councilor Valerie Peacock said she was hesitant to exclude anyone in the business community from the survey.
“The community of Bar Harbor complicated,” she said. “I don’t like thinking the people who run businesses here aren’t part of the community if they’re only here in the summer, and what that means if we’re explicit about that.”
Peacock said she also hesitated to exclude summer residents.
“It’s what’s challenging and engaging and different about Bar Harbor,” she continued. “As a town, we deal with tourism and it impact us in lots of ways, good and bad. We have things in Bar Harbor that you might not have in a community of 5,000 because of all the businesses and tourism here.
"We have some things we might not want because we have so many tourists here, but it’s part of this question about — what is the community of Bar Harbor and who’s in it and who’s not and who are we all together?”
The council’s vice-chair, Matthew Hochman agreed.
“I think in some ways, with this discussion, we’re being very unfair to our businesses,” he said. “And kind of what we’re saying to them is, Give us your tax money and go away. They pay taxes here. They contribute to the local economy.”
He continued, “Whatever decision we make on cruise ships on behalf of the residents and the voters will impact these folks as well, some of them greatly. If we vote to severely curtail cruise ships, some these businesses might not be here.”
Councilor Erin Cough suggested that students at the local College of the Atlantic should also be included in the discussion, as well as summer residents and seasonal workers. Many, she said, choose Bar Harbor as a part-year home or for college because of the town’s quality of life.
“This community is really diverse when you’re looking at what makes up our little town,” she said. "I really don’t think it’s fair to discount all those other voices that make Bar Harbor such a unique place.”
In the end, the council decided to hire a professional consultant to create a community survey of opinions on cruise ship visitation, without specifying any particular segment of the community.
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