The “Cruise Ship Limits” petition in Juneau, restricting the number of daily cruise ship passengers and shortening the cruise season, did not collect enough signatures to appear on the fall 2025 municipal election ballot.
Karla Hart, the petition’s sponsor, needed at least 2,720 valid signatures from registered voters by the May 19 deadline, but the petition fell short.
Hart was able to get enough signatures for last year’s “Ship-Free Saturday” petition, but that measure ended up failing during the October municipal election, with 59% of voters disapproving it.
The petition that has now failed would have created a similar citizen-mandated ordinance that would limit cruise ship passengers disembarking in Juneau to 12,000 per day, except for ships with fewer than 200 passengers. It would shorten the cruise ship season to May 1 through Sept. 30, prohibiting ships from visiting for seven months out of the year. Now, ships typically arrive in mid-April and end their season in mid-October, but the “shoulder seasons” have minimal impact on the city due to lower numbers. There was no language in this petition to ban ships on Saturdays.
In Sitka, a special election is under way to determine if there should be limits on cruise ships. That election is in the early voting phase and ends on May 28. It seeks to limit cruise ships that have over 250 passengers, as well as restrict cruise ships from the port before May 1 and after Sept. 30. Ships would be limited to six days a week. The initiative would cap daily cruise ship passengers at 4,500 and annual passengers at 300,000 per cruise season. There are other provisions involving scheduling, permitting, reporting, and enforcement.
This will never be over as long as Hart remains in Juneau.
For whatever reason, this is the hill she wants to “die on”.
Juneau is Homer in disguise, or is it the other way around?
Always whining about heli noise, maybe we should pool together and get Hart some noise cancelling headphones.
?? Too bad. Won’t take comment. Tis 2025. You don’t like tourists. Move AK big state. Whiners do not accept change and revenue for their city’s base. ✌️
Juneau, Sitka doesn’t want the cruise ships, hello Anchortown!!!
I lived in Ketchikan from 1969-1997. I saw first-hand how cruise ships went from 2-3 ships a day to 5-7 a day with some counts of passengers as high as 20,000 people in town at once.
Juneau, Sitka, the same thing. Tiny little towns that cruise companies have literally overtaken in the summer. If you have business downtown good luck getting there.
A limit on how many per day is necessary. Princess Cruises buys “shops” in all these towns to land a permanent spot for their massive vessels. All the crap they sell is the same in Ketchikan, Juneau and Sitka.
Southeast has turned into a funnel of poop and cruise people that are about as rude as you find. Beaches get closed occasionally because of literally poop and waste water they dump by the gallons into OUR waters. I wish they would stop them all!
When people tell me they visited Alaska and then tell me it was on a cruise through the inside passage, I tell them, “You didn’t really see Alaska. Next time go up to Anchorage and Fairbanks.” I remember being in Juneau and the radio guy was talking about being in the great Pacific Northwest. To the rest of us, it’s southeast.