Opponents Say Bar Harbor Cruise Cap Hurts Bar Harbor Businesses, Other Towns, and Commerce

Carrie Jones

Dec 18, 2025

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Choco-Latté Café.

---

BAR HARBOR—Both the Association to Preserve and Protect Local Livelihoods (APPLL), and the Penobscot Bay and River Pilots Association have filed briefs this week in a long-lasting court case against the town’s rules that limit cruise ship disembarkations to 1,000 a day without fines.

Since the limits were approved by voters in 2022, Bar Harbor has had multiple lawsuits about the enforcement of the limits and their legality. A group of local businesses had appealed a federal court decision upholding those rules as has the Pilots Association.

In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit partially upheld and partially sent back to a lower court Bar Harbor’s legal dispute with the groups over cruise ship disembarkation limits.

The court had also ruled that each party involved would bear its own cost.

The federal court also partially dismissed the appeal and dismissed a cross appeal in a sprawling 72-page decision from Chief Judge David Barron, who heard the case with Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and Circuit Judge William Kayatta. Breyer is a retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

The judges called the discussion of the Dormant Commerce Clause claims as the “centerpiece of the appeals.”

“We largely affirm the District Court’s ruling in favor of the defendants as to these claims, but we do vacate and remand a portion of it,” Barron wrote in the August decision.

To remand a case to a lower court, means that the higher court — in this case the federal appeals court — orders the lower court to reconsider or further act on a portion of its original decision.

These briefs, filed December 16, are part of that process.

The first brief by Timothy Woodcock and Janna Gau of Katahdin Law rebuts arguments from the town and local businessman Charles Sidman, who is a defendant intervenor in the case.

It states that the restrictions on cruise ship passengers to get to the town are substantial and create an “excessive burden on commerce.”

It also argues that it burdens other coastal towns typically on the common cruise ship route in both Canada and New England, where Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park are highlights, and that the limit has not been proven to advance health and human safety nor has it “‘meaningfully advance(d)’ comparative tranquility through the reduction of congestion based solely on the exclusion of cruise visitation.”

Pedestrian congestion, Woodcock and Gau argue, varies throughout the season, the day, and has different sources. They reference a 2023 document by Bar Harbor Planning Director Michele Gagnon, which estimated that Bar Harbor can have approximately 20,500 overnight guests and approximately 2,900 commuters.

Much of Acadia National Park sits in Bar Harbor. The park gathered almost 4 million visits each year, which is not the same number as visitors. The park is one of the state’s major tourist attractions, including for those who visit via cruise ships. Congestion in the area and how it impacts residents has been a key element of the case and greatly discussed in the August 11 opinion.

“Moreover, aside from the well-documented impact on the displaced cruise lines, the record also shows that the ordinance would adversely affect geographically diverse cruise line patrons. As Sarah Flink, the executive director of CruiseMaine explained, about 12 percent of cruise tourists come from international origins and, of the domestic-origin tourists about 16 percent come from the Midwest, a percentage ‘in the teens’ come from California and a percentage ‘in the high single digits’ come from Texas. By contrast, ‘over 80 percent of land-based visitors come from the mid Atlantic, New England, or eastern Canada.’ Moreover, testimony at trial showed that this geographically diverse clientele was drawn to cruise ship excursions due to the unique port-to-port experience essential to this mode of travel.

“In addition, as this court also found, the ordinance’s burdens on commerce would extend beyond the cruise lines and their patrons to inflict significant harm on APPLL members, the pier and tender owners, and the pilots. According to Captain David Gelinas, the pilots made significant investments to accommodate cruise ships and derived a considerable portion of their revenues from doing so. The record also showed that certain parties among the plaintiffs, including the piers, the tenders, and witness Kevin DesVeaux, were particularly dependent on cruise tourism and, if the ordinance was to be implemented, would experience dramatic reduction in business.”

Woodcock and Gau’s brief also argues that the town’s 2019 “Operations and Maritime Study” as well as a 2022 Town Council proposal of memoranda of agreements (MOA) as less burdensome means of dealing with cruise ship visits. That proposal was narrowly defeated by voters 1,776 to 1,713 in 2024.

The second brief filed for the pilots’ association also argues that the ordinance causes a substantial burden on commerce.

Kathleen Kraft and C. Jonathan Benner wrote, “The ordinance seeks to promote the Town’s local interest in comparative tranquility through the reduction of pedestrian congestion in the downtown area, but fails to employ means capable of advancing that local interest to a meaningful degree.”

---

LINKS TO LEARN MORE

UPDATED: Bar Harbor’s Cruise Ship Limits Lawsuit Partially Remanded to Lower Court

Carrie Jones

Aug 12

Read full story

[250] Pilots’ Reply Brief On Remand

323KB ∙ PDF file

Download

[251] Plaintiffs’ Reply Brief On Demand

910KB ∙ PDF file

Download

The recording of the oral arguments is here.

The town’s cruise ship information page for filings in the appeal and the original federal case.

You can read the opinion in its entirety here.

For more filings via the town in the lawsuit and appeal, see its Cruise Ship Information page.