Efforts to Limit Cruise Visits in Juneau Defeated

A proposal to limit the number of cruise ship passengers and shorten the cruise season in Juneau failed before it even got started when it failed to get the required number of signatures to make the ballot.

The news was reported by local news outlet Juneau Empire.

The “Cruise Ship Limits” proposal sought to set a limit for ships of 950 or more passengers to just five per day, plus a full-stop daily limit of 16,000 “lower-berth capacity” passengers Sundays through Fridays and no more than 12,000 on Saturdays. Simultaneously, it would have set an annual limit of 1.5 million passengers and stopped cruise ships of 250 or more passengers from arriving before May 1 and after Sept. 30.

In order to get the proposal on the ballot, the initiative needed 2,720 valid signatures. The author of the measure said she didn’t know how many signatures the effort got but it was short of what was needed.

She told Juneau Empire that she hasn’t seen the same level of interest from residents for cruise ship limits that she saw with last year’s “Ship-Free Saturday” proposal, which went on to be defeated by a wide majority in last year’s municipal election.