No Agreements with Cruise Lines

Town says that no additional reservations for 2024 or 2025 will be accepted at this time

Dec 23, 2023

BAR HARBOR—Because the Town of Bar Harbor has not come to any new memorandums of agreements (MOAs) with cruise ship lines, the existing agreements continue in perpetuity.

The current agreements say that they will be reviewed at the end of the season and also that if there is no new agreements, the old ones will continue.

Those MOAs currently determine how and when cruise ships visit Bar Harbor. They were enacted in 2022 when a previous working group negotiated with the cruise lines for lower visitations. The agreements with each cruise line were signed just as town voters approved stricter cruise ship limits, which were brought to the November 2022 ballot via a citizens initiative. That initiative puts the restrictions and mechanisms governing them into the town’s Land Use Ordinance and calls for fines if more than 1,000 passengers disembark a day.

That change has been challenged in federal court by some local businesses, a pilots’ association, and a non-profit organization of local businesses. The judge is currently making a decision and a ruling is expected relatively soon. While waiting, the town had decided to operate under the current MOAs.

On Wednesday, December 20, the town issued a statement saying that the current working group failed to update any of the MOAs.

The statement from the Bar Harbor Town Council, December 20, 2023, reads,

“Through the MOA Working Group, the Town of Bar Harbor has been meeting with representatives from Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and the cruise ship industry to attempt, in good faith, to renegotiate the MOAs beyond December 2023. While the conversations were productive, helping each group understand our positions, we were not able to reach agreement at this time.
“The council remains committed to reducing cruise ship visitation. The anticipated court ruling in APPLL et al vs. Town of Bar Harbor will help us figure out the path forward.”

On Friday, the town issued another statement saying,

“In response to some inquiries about the status of the Memorandum of Agreement between the cruise lines visiting Bar Harbor and the Town, the Manager’s Office offers the following statement:

“The Council’s position is that it will abide by the terms of the Memorandum of Agreement between the cruise lines visiting in Bar Harbor and the Town (“MOA”) for booking cruise ships for the 2023 and 2024 seasons until it promulgates rules to implement and enforce the cruise ship ordinance and a decision from the U.S. District Court of Maine on the APPLL litigation is issued.
“Regardless of the outcome of the litigation, it is the town’s position that the MOA does not apply to the 2025 cruise ship season, unless and until the parties agree to extend the MOA.
“The harbormaster has accepted all reservations for the 2024 and 2025 cruise ship seasons that were made and accepted before the ordinance passed. No additional reservations for 2024 or 2025 will be accepted at this time. Pending a favorable decision on the litigation, it remains the Council’s intent to implement and enforce cruise ship ordinance. Further updates concerning requests for reservations for 2024 and 2025 will be issued following the anticipated decision.”

The last time the MOAs were negotiated, it was by two councilors, past Town Manager Kevin Sutherland, Harbormaster Chris Wharff, and Executive Director of CruiseMaine, Sarah Flink. This most recent negotiation, it was Peacock, Minutolo, Finance Director Sarah Gilbert, Wharff, and Town Attorney Stephen Wagner as the working group. Flink acted as an advisor to the group when needed.

Flink said on Wednesday, “Thank you for reaching out. As you know, I have been serving as an advisor to the MOA Working Group and as such, I will defer to the town's statement on the progress of those efforts.”

CruiseMaine is part of the Maine Office of Tourism. Its website says that it is “dedicated to the support, education, and promotion of Maine communities seeking sustainable cruise ship tourism. Recognizing that each port city and town has different needs and capacities, it works with communities individually to help further their goals. CruiseMaine is also supported by the Maine Port Authority, the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, and the Maine Department of Transportation. Members include official ports, coastal communities, and businesses wanting to leverage cruise ship tourism.”

Bo Jennings, speaking not as the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce’s Executive Director, but as a citizen and general manager, said, "I appreciate the efforts of the working group to try and update the MOAs from last year. What seemed to be missing was representation from the local businesses and the cruise industry, those that know firsthand the positive and negative effects the current MOA has had. We learned what worked well, what did not work well, and what could/should be tweaked for the coming year(s). My hope is that future working groups will include additional representation from local businesses, the cruise industry, as well as non-business residents, all of which have a vested interest in the long-term impact of cruise visitation to Bar Harbor. If we come together, we can do great work for all of Bar Harbor."