Jul 26, 2025
BAR HARBOR—Some residential neighbors of Hadley Point Beach are hoping the town will regulate what commercial uses can occur at the town-owned, public space.
Bar Harbor Parks and Recreation Committee Vice Chair Greg Veilleux described the beach as one of the last bastions of beaches where more local people could go and enjoy themselves during the committee’s July 21 meeting.
The meeting showed some tension in how residents’ interests and commercial interests may not perfectly coincide in a town that has recently seen debates about cruise ships, tourism, short-term vacation rentals, and special amusement permits.
While it is probably most commonly thought of as just a beach with a nice view and easy access to the water for swimming, Hadley Point Beach, referred to as Hadley Point Landing in the town’s municipal ordinances, is one of only two public access boat launch areas with an actual ramp on the eastern side of Bar Harbor.
William “Bill” and Sue Hersey live just a little bit down Bay View Drive from Hadley Point and have been conversing with a myriad of town staff about what they believe is a marked uptick in commercial use of the beach’s water access.
This activity ranges from kayak tours to commercial shellfish farmers offloading, to a construction contractor loading and offloading heavy equipment onto a barge for a construction project on Ironbound Island.
On Monday July 21, the parks and recreation committee gathered, along with some town staff, to begin a conversation regarding commercial use at Hadley Point Landing.
TIPPING POINT
Police Chief David Kerns said that the apparent “tipping point” for this issue was a kayak company that was leaving a trailer with kayaks, kayaking gear, and signage on it in the Hadley Point Landing overnight.
The owner of the kayak company believed that the trailer was on private land and not public land, which was determined to be inaccurate, according to Chief Kerns.
This particular kayak tour company had been using the area to break away from the more historic kayak tour model: loading customers into a van and transporting the customers and kayaks to a launch site for drop off.
In this tour model, the equipment stays on site, the customers make their reservations online, and then self transport to the equipment, in this case, Hadley Point.
According to Chief Kerns, the kayak company’s trailer being parked at Hadley Point overnight started a bigger conversation about overnight parking and commercial use, eventually involving the town’s highway department, police department, and code enforcement office trying to get to some type of resolution.
Once that trailer was determined to be on public land, it was in direct violation of Town of Bar Harbor Municipal Code Chapter 144, Parks. Section 18, paragraph D of that chapter reads, “Night parking prohibited. A person shall not leave a vehicle, construction equipment or construction materials standing or parked at night in a park after closing hours. Any vehicle, equipment or materials found in a park after closing hours shall be removed and stored at the expense of the owner.”
Because of that clarity in the town’s ordinance, the kayak trailer issue has been resolved and it is no longer parked there overnight. Kayak tours are still being launched from Hadley Point as they have for many years. Customer self transport to Hadley Point Beach, rather than group transport in a van, is still being utilized as well, as shown in pictures taken on July 26.
However, there are many other uses occurring at the beach, many of which utilize the landing, that do not have such clarity of language in the ordinance. Commercial use is not mentioned in chapter 144 at all.
During the meeting, Erin Cough asked how do you define commercial use: Is it loading a barge or parking a sauna or setting up a food truck on the beach?
Cough continued to list examples of what commercial uses could be: scuba class, swimming lessons, someone who pays for a romantic lunch or engagement party to be catered at the beach, making it apparent that definitions need to be figured out in order to regulate the area. Both water dependent and other commercial uses must be figured into those definitions and possible future regulations.
During the “what is a commercial use” conversation, Bar Harbor Code Enforcement Officer Mike Gurtler said, “We have definitions of commercial in the land use ordinance that we could apply to that. I think that, you know, the barges and boat launching and even kayaks are water dependent uses which are allowed in the shoreland area if they are permitted properly. In this case, they wouldn’t have to permit because it is public land so it depends on what the town wants to allow down there.”
Commercial use is also not mentioned in Chapter 31, Article VIII, which is the section outlining duties and powers of the parks and recreation committee. The committee, which is only advisory in nature, is given sweeping (advisory) authority over the use of town parks in sections 106 and 107.
Section 106 reads, “Mission. The parks and recreation committee shall act in an advisory capacity to the town council and town manager in all matters relating to the development and management of the yown’s parks and recreation facilities.”
Section 107 reads in part, “Powers and duties. The committee will: A. Make recommendations for the use, maintenance, improvement, and development of Glen Mary Park, Park Street Playground, Athletic Field, Grant Park, the Village Green, Agamont Park, and the Town Beach and such other recreational facilities and areas as the town may acquire.”
The parks and recreation committee, after conversations which should include public comment periods, will advise the town manager and town council on any regulatory issues related to Hadley Point (and any other applicable parks) that it thinks need to be changed or added.
Chapter 144, section 1 does make it clear what the purpose of the parks and recreation committee is but contains many terms that appear arguable, “the purpose of this chapter is to regulate the conduct of persons using or occupying the public parks and recreation areas of the Town in order to preserve these areas from misuse or destruction and to enhance their use for the members of the public who use the parks in a reasonable manner.”
COMMERCIAL USE
Kayak companies have been using Hadley Point beach for many years to launch tours and under the van transport and drop off model. With the newer self transport model comes the issue of parking cars.
Cars and kayaks are not the only commercial use of the beach currently and some uses could be more impactful to the areas because of sheer size and weight.
According to Public Works Director Bethany Leavitt, a company approached the town about using the boat ramp at Hadley Point to load a concrete truck onto a barge. Leavitt said she believes that the company is doing a project on Ironbound Island. She said that the company seemed willing to pay for any damages, but the town was concerned about the ramp getting damaged. Not wanting the ramp to get further damaged during the heavier usage season, the town asked the contractor to seek out another location.
In addition, the town has Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) money to repair 2024 storm damage that is there but not to replace or enhance the boat ramp. Leavitt said that the town has permitting and just needs to get a contractor onboard but is waiting until fall when usage goes down because the ramp will be offline during repairs.
However, one resident said that contractors do appear to be using the ramp to load barges.
At the July 21 meeting, Bill Hersey said that within the last week and a half he has been down there several times. He was there on the morning of July 21 and said there were two Gott’s trucks loaded with sand waiting to be put on a barge. Last week he said there was a big tractor trailer truck with a huge excavator that had either just come off the barge or was waiting to be loaded, and about a week and a half ago, there was a different barge and another tractor trailer and they were loading a huge ramp onto the barge.
Veilleux asked if commercial users, especially those using it for heavy needs, could utilize the seaplane ramp at the Trenton Airport.
Chief Kerns said that he believes that the construction company is waiting to get to a county commissioners meeting or waiting on something else for approval, and he believes they are using Hadley Point to be able to keep working on their project.
According to Bill Hersey, he recently spoke with the airport manager, Leroy Muise, and asked if commercial use was allowed at the airport’s seaplane ramp. Hersey specifically asked about oyster or mussels farmers offloading their catch there at the end of the day.
Also according to Bill Hersey, Muise said that one of the mussel farmers does use the ramp quite a bit in the winter time and they are working toward trying to make it so someone can barge out of the location.
AQUACULTURE USES AND PARK AND WATER CLEANLINESS
According to Leavitt, someone had sent an email asking about the town grading and cleaning up the beach.
At the July 21 meeting, Leavitt said that the town has done grading and cleaning, via the public works department in the past. The town has even placed new material (sand) on the beach, but it just gets washed out to sea eventually.
Leavitt said that she will be addressing these two topics in the future and that she will be looking at legal restrictions to make sure the town doesn’t violate any laws with the depositing of or removal of material.
Signage is another topic that Leavitt has been receiving emails about and she said that some of the requests aren’t necessarily feasible, such as double-sided signs, and some have been addressed and some are still being worked on.
There are signs that say that overnight parking is not allowed but public works is still working on signage regarding dog waste and other subject matter with the marine resources committee.
Kerns said that now the police department is taking a “hard line” on overnight parking and will not allow any, without exception.
Dog waste that is not cleaned up from the beach area, anywhere that rain and tides can wash the feces into the ocean, impacts anyone who harvests shellfish in the area because if dogs and other animals defecate on the beach and it’s not cleaned up, that fecal matter mixes in with the ocean.
The state monitors the waters in this area and the people who financially depend on the growing or harvesting of oysters, clams, or mussels are already in danger of losing this area to help support those financial needs.
Two local mussel and oyster companies, along with other volunteers, recently cleaned the beach of seaweed and hopefully any discarded feces. As mentioned above, the town’s marine resources committee is working on educational signage to make people not only more aware of the dangers of feces but also harvesting rules for recreational harvesters and other topics.
The public works department has now installed a dog waste bag dispenser and a dog waste receptacle near the porta-potty.
Leavitt said that the other main complaint was people using the handicapped porta-potty at the beach as a trashcan and throwing trash inside of the porta-potty.
Previously, there was a dumpster at the beach but that was removed when people filled it with bags of household trash on a regular basis. In the interim, there was no official trashcan and that is most likely why the porta-potty was being utilized as a trashcan.
The public works department has since built a trashcan that will only accept smaller items and not entire bags of trash and installed it at the beach.
Last week the trash can and porta-potty were both emptied on Friday and were both full again by Sunday, according to Leavitt and this may be an indicator of increased use of the beach. It is not a problem to put another trashcan at the site but the installation of another porta-potty will require pouring a new concrete pad so that it can be anchored.
Leavitt said that she checks the beach in the evening and often sees a good amount of people utilizing the beach for sunsets, bonfires, family activities etc. On Saturday, July 26, there were no less than six rings of rocks at the water’s edge that appeared to have been recently used as fire pits.
Sue Hersey said, “We appreciate you listening to our concerns. We have been here for twenty plus years and it’s a wonderful public beach and there is more traffic and it’s kind of nice to see the families that come and have picnics and do all of those fun things and get a few mussels. Down there at sunset there’s families with campfires and all that, but we have just watched this commercial (usage) creep in and creep in and creep in, so if there’s anything you can do to clarify things and regulate things better, it would be much appreciated.”
On July 21, the parks and recreation committee took no action on Hadley Point landing and moved it to another agenda for discussion.
Chair John Kelly, Veilleux, Erin Cough, and YMCA representative Ann Tikkanen attended. Secretary Jeff Dobbs had an excused absence. Town staff attending were Leavitt, Gurtler, and Chief Kerns.
Before any business was discussed, current Chair Kelly, who was recently elected to the town’s warrant committee, turned the chairing of the committee over to Vice Chair Veilleux until the committee could have a restructuring meeting. Kelly cited town rules that prohibit an elected official from holding an officer’s position on any other town board or committee.
The next scheduled meeting of the parks and recreation committee is currently scheduled for August 4, 2025, at 4:30 p.m., at the town office.
All photos: Shaun Farrar and Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
“One Dog Poop Could Shut Us Down.”
No Recommendation About Hadley Point Landing Being Used for Commercial Purposes
Parks and Recreation Discuss Town’s Storm Damage and if a Sauna Business Can Spend Time on Hadley Beach
Hadley Point Ramp Damaged, Ells Pier Might Be OK
Bar Harbor Secures FEMA Reimbursement for Town Pier and Hadley Point Beach Ramp Engineering for 2024 Storm Repairs
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