Key West cruise critics want the city to slow down on welcoming back ships
Key West no longer needs so many cruise ships docking almost daily at the island’s three ports, a group of local activists says.
The newly formed political action committee called Key West Committee for Cleaner, Safer Ships is urging the city to be wary of the industry to preserve its residents’ health as well as their pocketbooks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Arlo Haskell, an organizer, said a driving factor of the resistance against the cruise industry is its role in spreading COVID-19.
He warned that an outbreak like the one seen on the Ruby Princess cruise ship in Australia “would decimate the economy.” A Miami Herald investigation found at least 647 people from that ship were infected and at least 22 have died.
Last year, 393 cruise ships carrying 1.2 million passengers and crew members visited Key West, where the cruise industry has sparked controversy since its ships first began docking a half century ago.
Haskell, a Keys native who is the city’s poet laureate, is executive director of the Key West Literary Seminar.
Key West Committee for Cleaner, Safer Ships has three goals:
▪ Limit the number of passengers that get off ships to 1,500 per day
▪ Prohibit cruise ships with 1,300 passengers or more from unloading
▪ Give docking priority to cruise lines that have the best health and environmental records.
A spokesman for the cruise industry’s lobbying group Cruise Lines International Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The cruise industry is one of the most divisive topics on the island. Some say the city’s economy relies on cruise ship passengers. Others say they are a detriment, environmentally and aesthetically.
At times, the giant ships even block the waterfront view around Mallory Square.
Haskell and his friends are not just complaining on Facebook. They’ve organized a petition drive with plans to get questions on the Nov. 3 ballot to help roll back the cruise ship industry, which has had a foothold in Key West since 1969 and became a player in 1999 when 415 ships called on Key West.
In February alone, more than 100,000 passengers visited Key West, according to city records.
Overall, the cruise ships in 2019 brought in $5.9 million to city coffers from the $10-per-head disembarkation fees at two of the ports, according to figures provided by the city’s finance department. The privately owned Pier B allows the city to take only $2.50 per passenger.
But the city spends millions on the cruise ships, too. There is transportation of passengers from the Navy’s Outer Mole pier to downtown, which cost $1.4 million in 2019, plus salaries, police, fire and emergency service costs and extra security guards.
And the Navy got a cut, about $1.1 million, for letting the city use its dock.
A 2018 study by Raftelis Financial Consultants determined that the city made $91,000 from the cruises docking after expenses.
But those in favor of the cruise ships say they pump money in to the city’s businesses. The Key West Chamber of Commerce, though, didn’t have any hard numbers when asked this week.
Critics like Haskell say the money isn’t worth the risk, given the recent cruise line responses to COVID-19.
After the largest COVID-19 outbreak outside China happened on a cruise ship in Japan in mid-February, cruise companies continued operations despite repeated outbreaks and suspected infections on ships until March 13. Cruises contributed to the spread of the virus around the globe, health experts say.
“There’s no doubt about it that people got on board and got infected and spread it to many many different countries,” said Dr. Martin Cetron, the CDC’s director of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, in an interview last week. “Many people unfortunately died as a result of not knowing of how bad this virus is.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has banned all cruises through at least July 24. Carnival Cruise Line announced this week it plans to resume cruises on eight of its 27 ships from Miami, Port Canaveral, and Galveston, Texas, on Aug. 1.
This isn’t the first time a local political movement has formed against the cruise ship industry in Key West.
In 2013, Key West’s business community couldn’t win a political battle over whether Key West needed to order a federal study on the effects of widening its harbor channel to accommodate larger cruise ships.
The channel-widening question turned into an argument over the value of cruise ships to the island. Sides became black and white: for or against the ships coming to Key West.
Despite an expensive campaign backed by the Key West Chamber of Commerce, the pro-study measure failed miserably at the polls in an election where more people voted on that question than voted for mayor.
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 11:47 AM.
%20Cropped%20(1).jpg)
