KONK Life interviews, Michael Halpern, local Attorney and Business Owner, regarding the efforts bought by a group for safer cleaner ships

Konk Life: Michael,  There is a referendum on the ballot about restricting the crusie industry on only bringing smaller cleaner ships to Key West. Do you think there’s some outside sources influenceing this initishive?

Michael Halpern: Well, I’ve always believed that the major money behind the movement of cleaner, safer cruise ships are part-time residents that moved here to Key West and want to change the town to a quieter, more upscale town. That has always been my belief. I find it funny that cleaner, safer cruise ship referendum bans the cleanest and safest cruise ships in the world from landing in Key West.

Konk Life: What do you mean by that? Because they’re saying that they want the safer, cleaner ships, but you say it’s going to ban them from coming. How is that?

Michael Halpern: There’s no question. The referendums ban the cleanest, safest cruise ships like Disney’s which has a superb environmental record. Their cruise ships have everything that any community would want to welcome in. They’re banned by the referendum. The cruise industry has designed a group of cruise ships on a new ecological basis, with state-of-the-art environmental safeguards. With this referandum they will be band since cruise ships like these are barred from coming into Key West by the referendum. The smaller cruise ships that they want to come in many of them and I mean, a lot of them have few environmental safeguards that the middle-sized cruise ships we’ve been getting installed in their ships. So there isn’t any question at all, that the cleaner safer cruise ships ban the cleanest safest cruise ships from coming into Key West. So then the question is, why go through all this referendum if it bars the cleaner, safer cruise ships from coming in? And the reason, of course, is that neighborhoods want fewer Conch Trains and Tolleys riding through their streets and they want fewer tourists on the street. It’s reimagining Key West as an upscale community. And I’m strongly against that  because I believe that our city is based on one human family. And we should welcome all crucial passengers of all socio-economic backgrounds.

Konk Life: Well, Michael, you have a long history here in Key West, we’ve seen the City evolve. But isn’t this potentially the next evolution for the City? Is that possible?

Michael Halpern: Well, you and I were playing here in the 70s before the cruise ships came. We were here in the 70s when Duval streets were warehouses and Auto parts stores. And we were here together when I began to build on Duval Street to convert some of these warehouses from closed warehouses to retail stores, restaurants. You and I were both here in the evolution of Key West and we struggled mightily on Duval Street until cruise ships came along and the downtown community blossomed. There’s always the need for balance. Of course, it doesn’t balance it because there are no smaller, cleaner cruise ships coming in. This is a ban on all cruise ships. This is a critical moment because a lot of people will lose their jobs and a lot of businesses will go under. We have always evolved the downtown business district. You and I have been here, when in the 1970’s we were a Navy town and small period-of-time we were a Narco economy, with drug trafficking, flowing money into the community. And then, we ran the Narco community out and it became the beginning of a tourist economy. We’ve been here too many evolutions of this community. Nobody from cleaner, safer cruise ships, or from reimagining Key West or anywhere has come up with any new ideas that I’ve heard of. What do you want Key West to be next? If you want it to be more upscale with more museums and higher-end shops, you’re going in the wrong direction. If you block cruise ships,  The Mel Fisher Museum, the Hemingway House museum will close. If they don’t close, they’ll be severely damaged. These are the businesses we want to say you have in the shops at Mallory square. The Butterfly conservatory has a retail shop that’s been there 25-30 years. Without cruise ships, it closes. The Hemingway house has a retail store Hemingway bookstore, without cruise ships that closes. Do we really want to be a community where these outstanding businesses close? What have we accomplished? If you want to reimagine the community, you have to come up with the idea first of what you reimagine it as rather than shut down businesses, lose people jobs and then say we’re going to figure it out later?

Konk Life: You’re the owner of the Southernmost house. Are you seeing an uptick in business over the past month? Now The Governor Ron DeSantis has lifted some of the restrictions for all of the reservations?

Michael Halpern: Yes, we have an uptick. Now that the Governor has opened up, the businesses in the communities were beginning to build back where we suffer so severely is on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. We have an economy in which we’re going back to the ’70s weekend economy where people club down on weekends, and then they leave Sunday or Monday. So you’ll see very good hotel occupancy on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the occupancy sinks below 50%. And the retail businesses and restaurants they’re all the same. In the past, when we had slow periods, even when pre-COVID when you had weaker days in September, October, you always had cruise ship passengers. When the hotels fail to fill, the cruise ships passengers would fill in the income that was missing as the hotels went down in occupancy. We don’t have cruise ships now. So now you have all businesses suffering.

————————————————————————————————————————

Local journalism is under attack, you can rely on KONK Life to deliver local news and information from Key West to Key Largo. As an Associated Press affiliated newspaper we deliver our subscribers Florida, National, and International news as well. Your support is how KONK Life can continue to report on news that affects your like family and business. Please become a subscriber today, now is the time.

Subscribe: https://konklife.com/subscribe/

Thank you.

————————————————————————————————————————

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]