Court also affirms lower court decision denying Charles Sidman’s request to intervene
Jan 16, 2026
PORTLAND—The state Supreme Judicial Court yesterday, dismissed the Golden Anchor’s appeal of the Business and Consumer Court’s September decision involving cruise ship disembarkations at its pier in Bar Harbor.
The complaint involves the company’s ability to disembark cruise ships at its West Street location, the Harborside Pier, which is also known as the Golden Anchor Pier, and the town’s appeals board’s previous decision.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court also agreed with that lower court’s decision that Charles Sidman could not intervene in the case. Sidman, who co-owns an art gallery in Bar Harbor with his wife, is the defendant intervenor in a lawsuit between the Association to Preserve and Protect Local Livelihoods and some local businesses and the town about the cruise ship disembarkation rules that had been approved by the voters.
“The Maine Supreme Judicial Court issued two rulings related to pending cruise ship litigation involving the town,” Bar Harbor Town Manager James Smith said Friday afternoon, January 16. “In the first matter, the court affirmed the trial court’s denial of a request by a private citizen to intervene, upholding the conclusion the citizen’s interests are adequately represented by the town’s officials.”
In a complaint, the Golden Anchor, a local business that has a pier where cruise ship passengers have historically disembarked, challenged the town’s code enforcement officer’snotice of violations (NOV), which said the business disembarked cruise ship passengers without a permit.
The business had requested that this decision, upheld by the town’s appeals board, be reviewed by the higher court.
The Maine Supreme Court determined that since there had been no final judgement on the ruling, it was not the right time for the business to appeal and that it did not fall under any typical exemptions for that decision.
“Golden Anchor has not met its burden to demonstrate that an exception applies here,” the court explained. “The harms Golden Anchor identifies would result, if at all, from the dismissal of its independent claims, not from delayed appellate review of the dismissal of its independent claims. We therefore dismiss the appeal without expressing any opinion on the merits of the order appealed from.”
There is a case filed in Hancock Superior Court related to the notice of violations as well. The town has also filed for millions in fines from the alleged passenger disembarkations.
For Sidman’s desire to be an intervenor in the case, the court wrote in its January 15 decision, “We are not convinced that the court’s denial of intervention involved an abuse of discretion or error of law. Specifically, we are unpersuaded by Sidman’s argument that the court erred or abused its discretion in determining, on the record before it, that Sidman’s interest in the litigation is adequately represented by the town.”
Sidman issued a statement, January 16, writing, “In our view, yesterday’s ruling by the Maine State Supreme (Law) Court, that the trial court did not abuse its discretion, based ‘on the record before it, that Sidman’s interest in the litigation is adequately represented by the town,’ hinged on the fact that the law court could not consider events that occurred after the motion record closed back in October 2024, such as the town disembarking passengers at the town pier, the town’s failed repeal of the ordinance in November 2024, etc. At oral argument, the law court appeared very interested in how the town was prevented from mounting a defense to Golden Anchor’s claim of a lawful nonconforming right to disembark passengers because the town is currently doing precisely the same unlawful activity. We still feel that this defense is central to the entirety of Golden Anchor’s several state law litigations challenging the ordinance. And we know that the town cannot make these arguments because it is doing the same exact thing. But because the court could not consider events that occurred after we made our motion to intervene, it included the important caveat that the trial court didn’t abuse its discretion ‘on the record before it,’ knowing that we can just reapply to intervene on a full, up to date record of all the town’s misdeeds to date. If the trial court still decides not to let us in, we will reappeal to the law court and they will be able to consider the full record, including how the town cannot adequately mount a defense to Golden Anchor’s claims of a lawful nonconforming right. The town and Golden Anchor could have stipulated to these events and streamlined this process, but are choosing to drag the several litigations out and expend further time, energy and money, to properly resolve what could easily have been addressed already in several different ways.
“Further and involving the same issue, their response (filed yesterday and attached here) to our 80B complaint (also s/a) about just this behavior by the town is being answered in typical ad hominem “discredit the messenger” fashion rather than by addressing the fundamental legal question involved, largely because the town has no legitimate legal defense for its behavior.”
Eben Salvatore, of Ocean Properties and a representative for the Golden Anchor said, “Early in this process Mr. Sidman pretended to want smaller cruise ships in Bar Harbor. It’s clear now that was simply a distraction tactic. This has always been about completely eliminating a specific type of person from visiting Bar Harbor.”
Along with being a defendant intervenor in the APPLL et. al. v Town of Bar Harbor case, Sidman was the lead for a citizens’ petition that limited cruise ship disembarkations to a set daily limit without fines as well as changing the mechanism for disembarkations to be approved by the town.
Smith said, “In the second matter, the court dismissed an interlocutory appeal on procedural grounds, meaning the case now returns to the trial court for further proceedings.”
”These decisions do not change the ordinance, do not limit the town’s authority, and do not reflect any finding of wrongdoing by the town. It simply returns both cases to the trial court to continue to be resolved. The town will continue to rely on the courts and the legal process, and will continue to carry out its responsibility to represent the entire community,” Smith said.
UPDATE: We’ve updated this story at 1:29 p.m., January 16 to include two PDFs below and Mr. Sidman’s comments. We’ve updated this story again at 4:10 p.m., January 16 to include Mr. Smith’s comments. At 4:50 p.m., January 16, it was updated to include Mr. Salvatore’s comments and additional wording.
447KB ∙ PDF file
278KB ∙ PDF file
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