Voters Organize to Limit Cruise Ships in Key West

Key West, Florida — The Key West Committee for Safer Cleaner Ships has launched a petition drive to put referenda on the August ballot to roll back cruise ship numbers and give preference to cruise lines with the best health and environmental records. Citing reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald, and the Washington Post that cruise ships played a major role in the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, they argue that a return to previous cruise ship numbers would pose a serious risk to the health and safety of Key West residents.

A white paper prepared by the committee (attached to this email) reports that cruise ship passengers make up 50% of all tourists in Key West but only 8% of all tourist spending. With Key West’s $1 billion tourist industry shuttered by the pandemic, the Key West Committee for Safer Cleaner Ships argues that the risk posed by cruise ships outweighs the limited economic benefit. They also say Key West risks scaring off the multi-day tourists who make up 92% of all tourist spending, now that the link between cruise ships and Covid-19 has been established.

“If we’re going to get our tourist economy back, we need rational balance between the 50% of visitors who spend 92%, and the 50% who contribute only 8%,” argues Evan Haskell, president of the committee. “With everything we know about cruise ships and Covid-19, we just can’t afford to go back to the way things were.”

More than 390 cruise ships carrying 1.2 million people visited Key West last year. The five-square mile island is home to 27,000 residents and currently has no regulations in place governing cruise ships.

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