Key West residents have approved measures to restrict the size of vessels and the number of cruisers able to come ashore daily. They also voted to give priority to ships attaining the highest environmental and health safety standards.

The vote on Election Day called for a daily limit of 1,500 of cruise passengers coming ashore per day, and limiting capacity of ships calling at Key West to no more than 1,300 passengers.

The three issues were approved by more than 60% of the vote.

“We realized that Key West hasn’t been offered the opportunity to have any input in how cruise ships come and visit us. And we decided that we needed to take a stand,” said Jolly Benson, vice president of the Committee for Safer, Cleaner Ships.

In 2019 almost half the total number of tourists to key West came off cruise ships. Not that impressive when the spend for cruise passengers represents about 7% of total tourism spending, according to a Cruise Lines International Association study.

The referendum was fought on two sides – those opposing cruise ship pollution and the tourism related business community keen to preserve jobs.

The changes will be added to the city’s charter but a legal fight is expected to continue.

Port operator Pier B Development had already started federal legal proceedings against the city and the Committee for Safer, Cleaner Ships.