Key West voters put limits on cruise ships but a legal battle looms
By wide margins, Key West voters Tuesday approved three referendums to limit cruise ship traffic on the island by cutting the number of passengers that can hit the streets and banning larger ships from unloading at all.
Voters were asked to decide whether the city should:
▪ Limit the number of daily cruise ship visitors at 1,500. Voters approved this by about 63%.
▪ Prohibit cruise ships with 1,300 passengers or more from docking. This passed with about 61% of the vote.
▪ Give docking priority to cruise lines that have the best health and environmental records. This passed with about 81% of the vote.
The Key West Committee for Safer, Cleaner Ships earlier this year gathered enough signatures to place the three questions on Tuesday’s ballot, at first citing concerns about COVID-19 spread.
“This is a historic opportunity for Key West to have this voice in how we handle the cruise ship traffic here in Key West,” said Evan Haskell, a committee organizer. “I feel like the citizens of Key West have been waiting 30 years to have this vote.”
Bill Lay, a Key West restaurant owner who opposes the changes, said, “I hope everything [organizers] said is true. I hope nobody is going to lose their jobs and business will not be affected.”
Lay said he looks forward to welcoming smaller cruise ships to Key West. “The citizens have spoken,” he said.
The referendums are binding, meaning they will change the city’s charter. Still, a legal fight is already in play at the Monroe County Courthouse.
Pier B Development, which operates one of the three ports in Key West, has sued the city and the Committee for Safer, Cleaner Ships. Monroe County Circuit Judge Bonnie Helms, in a Sept. 29 order, said she would schedule a trial sometime after the election.
Pier B wanted a court to remove the questions from the ballot, but its claims were denied, first in federal court and then before Helms.
Pier B began the legal fight in federal court, teaming up with the Key West Bar Pilots Association on a lawsuit in federal court in July.
U.S. District Court Judge James Lawrence King in August dismissed the federal suit, ruling the plaintiffs couldn’t demonstrate they were suffering harm from the questions being on the ballot.
“I’m trying not to address the merits of the claims,” King said on Aug. 12 after a hearing on the ballot issues. “They don’t necessarily fail; they just fail today.”
Key West citizens were divided over the cruise ship referendums, with some business owners predicting that curbing the daily influx of cruise ship passengers would hurt them financially.
While some business owners lauded cruising’s economic benefits, saying the city’s economy relies in part on cruise ship passengers, others complained about detrimental impacts on the environment and city culture.
A newly formed group of about two dozen port city activists from around the world has closely watched the Key West vote to determine whether referendums could be used elsewhere to curb cruise traffic.
“We support Safer Cleaner Ships’ ballot initiative 100% and see it as a test of democracy,” said Karla Hart, a member of the Alaska-based Global Cruise Activist Network last month. “Port communities have an inalienable right to determine the size and number of cruise ships that visit their town.”
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 9:02 PM.
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