Only in Maine

[USER=51]@Roccus7[/USER] Will you be there on opening day?New Maine Site Will Host The Largest Flagpole in the World

[USER=51]@Roccus7[/USER] Will you be there on opening day?[New Maine Site Will Host The Largest Flagpole in the World]('https://unofficialnetworks.com/2022/04/04/maine-largest-flagpole-world/')

Might consider it IF it's completed in my lifetime. It's only in its very early planning stages right now and has many regulatory and funding hurdles to overcome...

Here's a complete summary, including a "float it out" photo for that Garden State's Nobel Laureate's epic fail. Surprised Division of Marine Services or the EPA aren't fining him bigtime...

[HEADING=2]Ford Bronco stuck for 3 days in the Atlantic Ocean near Bar Harbor[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2022/04/20/ford-bronco-stuck-for-3-days-in-the-atlantic-ocean/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2022/04/20/ford-bronco-stuck-for-3-days-in-the-atlantic-ocean/')

By Faith DeAmbrose April 20, 2022

A series of inflatable pillow lift bags are placed under the Bronco to raise it from the ocean floor. Faith DeAmbrose/Mount Desert Islander

BAR HARBOR — It seems like every year a local tow truck company pulls a vehicle or two from the Atlantic Ocean in Bar Harbor after drivers fail to heed the daily tide cycle on a drive out to Bar Island.

For one driver who veered from the sandbar and into the mudflats, that mistake turned into a three-day ordeal that ended as a salvage operation and fueled days of social media chatter as people followed the saga.

On Saturday afternoon during the incoming tide, Jason St. Onage, the owner of a 2021 Ford Bronco registered in New Jersey, drove onto the beach and became stuck in the mud at the water’s edge about 500 feet from the land bridge to Bar Island. Unable to move the vehicle, St. Onage got out and called the Bar Harbor Police Department.

Les Foss, owner of Island Towing, and his team arrived on the scene and tried to remove the vehicle, but they were unable to because of the fast-rising tide.

Island Towing returned Sunday to try to remove the vehicle during each low tide but was unsuccessful. By then the vehicle had sunk farther into the mud and the electronics had malfunctioned, leaving the tow truck company unable to put the car into neutral and making it nearly impossible to drag out.

During the second attempt on Sunday, aided by a special winch system fabricated for their vehicles, Foss said they were able to move the Bronco about 150 feet before the ropes they were using snapped under the extreme tension.

Island Towing works to move a Ford Bronco stuck in the mud in Bar Harbor during low tide Sunday. Kip Wing/Aerial Aesthetic

That is when the incident turned into a salvage operation.

On Monday morning, Greg Canders of Canders Diving Service in Bangor donned a wet suit and placed a series of inflatable pillow lift bags under the Bronco. Once inflated, and at high tide, the vehicle was able to be moved to the sandbar to Bar Island. Canders then drove back out to the vehicle to remove the inflatables, and Foss waited for the next low tide to remove the vehicle using a flatbed truck.

The vehicle was finally removed around 5 p.m. Monday.

Foss said his company was called to remove “four or five” vehicles that were submerged on the sandbar last year. The sandbar is exposed at low tide but at high tide it is fully submerged under nearly 12 feet of water.

Canders said it was not the first vehicle he has had to recover from the water. In fact, he has been called upon to remove a variety of items from the water including cars, boats and even two snowmobiles this past winter.

No charges will be filed against the driver, and the driver’s insurance company is expected to cover the loss.

You'd think that after 370 they would have figured this out...

[HEADING=2]Border dispute between Maine’s two oldest towns heads to court[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2022/04/24/border-dispute-between-maines-two-oldest-towns-heads-to-court/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2022/04/24/border-dispute-between-maines-two-oldest-towns-heads-to-court/')

By Gillian Graham April 24, 2022

A controversy that has swirled for years over a small stretch of the border between Maine’s two oldest towns could soon be settled once and for all.

York and Kittery, normally friendly and cooperative neighbors, have been at odds over whether their shared border is straight or meandering. Maps drawn by each town in 1794 differed slightly, but the discrepancies apparently went largely unnoticed until four years ago.

After a survey of a Route 1 property that straddles the towns made it clear that their placements of part of the border didn’t match, officials from the two towns became locked in a back-and-forth over the exact location of the boundary.

Finally, York filed a complaint Feb. 22 in York County Superior Court asking a judge to appoint commissioners to settle the dispute. Kittery responded by saying no commissioners are needed because the border has been in the right place for well over three centuries. Kittery’s town manager has called York’s push to legally determine the border “an aggressive attempt to take land from Kittery.”

“Kittery will vigorously defend its borders,” Kittery Town Manager Kendra Amaral told town councilors on March 28. “It impacts neighborhoods, it impacts people’s property and the border has been recognized for hundreds of years.”

The border between York and Kittery was established in 1652 by decree from the Massachusetts Bay Colony under threat of force by an armed militia. Maps of the two towns drawn in 1794, a quarter-century before Maine became a state, show the border in slightly different spots.

Those differences weren’t an issue until that survey four years ago, commissioned by a local developer who had bought land along Route 1 that straddles the two towns. The survey found that the town line was 333 feet south of where modern maps show it to be. If the border is moved, that land would become part of York.

York officials think the developer’s survey shows the true straight-line border, but people down in Kittery disagree. The border that they say has been acknowledged for hundreds of years weaves slightly from Eliot to Brave Boat Harbor, they argue.

The dispute centers on land that includes about 300 feet of frontage on Route 1 north of Landmark Hill Lane. The area includes residential parcels, two cell towers and a cemetery. An attorney for Kittery said in court filings that York’s desired modification of the border would affect at least 25 residential properties covering over 300 acres, with a total assessed value of nearly $8 million.

Thedifferences in town maps when they first came to light prompted plenty of lighthearted ribbing about a “border war” breaking out between the two otherwise friendly towns. Town leaders in York joked about building a wall on their southern border, while Kittery residents imagined marching a militia northward.
But the issue is actually a serious one, municipal officials now say, and it needs to be settled.

The land in question is still largely wooded, but is in an area that has been developed in recent years. A border adjustment wouldn’t change anyone’s property ownership, but it would affect where some pay taxes, vote and go to school and which town maintains a cemetery. It could also change how that Route 1 property is developed.

Amaral believes York’s motivation to take this issue to court comes from a single property owner who is looking to develop property around the disputed border and right now has to comply with zoning in both towns. The property owner, who is not identified in town records, “is not happy with what Kittery has said” about how the property can be developed, she told the town council in late March.

Kittery has submitted a Freedom of Access Act request to York for all public records – including letters, emails, texts and social media messages – between town officials and past and present owners of the property at 524 U.S. Route 1. Amaral told the town council she suspects this will give the town a better sense of why York is pressing the border issue now.

A LONG HISTORY
Kittery, incorporated in 1647, is the oldest town in Maine and originally included the towns now known as Eliot, Berwick, North Berwick and South Berwick.

In November 1652, commissioners from the Massachusetts Bay Colony arrived in Kittery, intent on annexing what was then known as the Province of Maine up to modern-day Cape Porpoise. On Nov. 20, 42 inhabitants of Kittery signed a declaration acknowledging they would henceforth be subject to the Government of Massachusetts Bay.

Two days later, the commissioners traveled northeast to Gorgeana, where inhabitants had assembled at the house of Nicholas Davis. By the end of the day, they had taken the same oath as those in Kittery. Georgeana was reincorporated in 1652 as York, named for York, England, and was one of the last Royalist strongholds taken by the Puritans in the English Civil Wars.

Under the Articles of Submission signed in 1652, Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered the towns to set up up their borders. In 1794, Massachusetts insisted that each town create a map because many towns were in disputes over their boundaries. The borders on the maps created that year of Kittery and York did not completely match, but no one seemed to worry at the time.

Plan of Kittery, made by Benjamin Parker, dated November 1794 Massachusetts Archives
The border debate picked up in 2018, after the survey.

The following year, Todd Frederick, chairman of the York Board of Selectmen, sent his counterpart in Kittery a letter outlining York’s position that the border between their towns is a straight line established in 1652. He said the meandering line shown on local tax maps is inconsistent with the legally established border and asked Kittery to work with York to properly identify the “proper straight-line border” or ask the court to settle the matter.

Frederick cited a copy of a report that settled a contested border between York and Eliot to bolster York’s opinion that its border with Kittery is a straight line.

Eliot took York to court in 1991 to establish the boundary between the towns. The three-member commission established by a York County Superior Court judge determined the border between York and Eliot was a straight line.

Kittery officials disagree with York’s opinion that the ruling on the York-Eliot border has any bearing on the current border dispute. The report produced to settle the York-Eliot border issue did not review any historical records after 1810, when Eliot separated from Kittery, and ignored over 200 years of applicable historical record and all of the perambulations required by law, the town attorney wrote last month in a motion to dismiss York’s complaint.

Plan of York surveyed by Daniel Sewall, dated 1794-5. Massachusetts Archives

In a November 2019 response to Frederick’s letter, Judith Spiller, chair of the Kittery Town Council, wrote that the boundaries set forth by the Articles of Submission presented an alternate line to the one that had been used previously and that Kittery has used since. The town council, she said, believes the boundary between the two communities is not the one set forth in those articles but the one noted “in all relevant contemporary and historical documents.

“All U.S. Geological (Survey), State of Maine, Town of York and Town of Kittery maps and documents support the current and historical boundary between our two friendly communities,” she wrote.
Spiller disputed the validity of the border noted in the articles on other grounds as well.

“It is important to note that this particular boundary was established through aggression, imposed by decree from the Massachusetts Bay Colony,” she wrote. “Rife with arbitrary limitations set forth and enforced by armed militia, it reflected neither the established property lines of the times nor those before or after it.”

The border between Kittery and York on land along Route 1. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Amaral, Kittery’s town manager, and York Town Manager Stephen Burns each said they can’t comment on the dispute because it is in litigation.

BORDER GOES TO COURT
It is rare that disputes about municipal borders in Maine end up in court, but they are bound to pop up occasionally in a state whose town lines were set hundreds of years ago and often marked with stone walls, tree or granite markers that have long since disappeared.

In the complaint it filed in York County Superior Court in February, York asked the court to appoint three commissioners and empower them to determine the “true and correct” common boundary, describe the boundary line “by curves and distances,” and set markers to indicate the established border.

York argues in its filing that the 1652 description of the common boundary said it began at the head of Brave Boat Harbor and then ran “in a straight line to the head of ye Southwest branch of ye River of York.” The two towns, it said in its complaint, cooperatively identified that straight-line boundary through perambulations, or walking the line, in 1695, 1740, 1779 and 1794.

But the town said that waypoints that marked the boundary caused it to stray from its proper course and become a meandering line, not the straight line between two defined monuments identified in 1652.

Kittery has asked the court to dismiss York’s complaint, arguing that the situation should have been resolved long ago and York has not demonstrated a controversy sufficient to justify judicial review.
No hearings have been scheduled and a decision on the motion to dismiss could be a month or two away.

If the case is not dismissed, the court would likely appoint three commissioners with surveying experience to establish the exact location of the border.

Stephen Langsdorf of PretiFlaherty, who represents Kittery, said he “strongly believes the motion to dismiss will be granted because York did not comply with the requirement that border perambulations to confirm municipal boundaries occur every five years.” That process, which requires representatives of the town to walk the border, was required by law from 1820 to 2003.

“The point of the law was to timely identify any disputes about municipal borders,” Langsdorf said. “In other words, the case should have been resolved 200 years ago.”

You'd think that after 370 they would have figured this out...

[HEADING=2]Border dispute between Maine’s two oldest towns heads to court[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2022/04/24/border-dispute-between-maines-two-oldest-towns-heads-to-court/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2022/04/24/border-dispute-between-maines-two-oldest-towns-heads-to-court/')

By Gillian Graham April 24, 2022

A controversy that has swirled for years over a small stretch of the border between Maine’s two oldest towns could soon be settled once and for all.

York and Kittery, normally friendly and cooperative neighbors, have been at odds over whether their shared border is straight or meandering. Maps drawn by each town in 1794 differed slightly, but the discrepancies apparently went largely unnoticed until four years ago.

After a survey of a Route 1 property that straddles the towns made it clear that their placements of part of the border didn’t match, officials from the two towns became locked in a back-and-forth over the exact location of the boundary.

Finally, York filed a complaint Feb. 22 in York County Superior Court asking a judge to appoint commissioners to settle the dispute. Kittery responded by saying no commissioners are needed because the border has been in the right place for well over three centuries. Kittery’s town manager has called York’s push to legally determine the border “an aggressive attempt to take land from Kittery.”

“Kittery will vigorously defend its borders,” Kittery Town Manager Kendra Amaral told town councilors on March 28. “It impacts neighborhoods, it impacts people’s property and the border has been recognized for hundreds of years.”

The border between York and Kittery was established in 1652 by decree from the Massachusetts Bay Colony under threat of force by an armed militia. Maps of the two towns drawn in 1794, a quarter-century before Maine became a state, show the border in slightly different spots.

Those differences weren’t an issue until that survey four years ago, commissioned by a local developer who had bought land along Route 1 that straddles the two towns. The survey found that the town line was 333 feet south of where modern maps show it to be. If the border is moved, that land would become part of York.

York officials think the developer’s survey shows the true straight-line border, but people down in Kittery disagree. The border that they say has been acknowledged for hundreds of years weaves slightly from Eliot to Brave Boat Harbor, they argue.

The dispute centers on land that includes about 300 feet of frontage on Route 1 north of Landmark Hill Lane. The area includes residential parcels, two cell towers and a cemetery. An attorney for Kittery said in court filings that York’s desired modification of the border would affect at least 25 residential properties covering over 300 acres, with a total assessed value of nearly $8 million.

Thedifferences in town maps when they first came to light prompted plenty of lighthearted ribbing about a “border war” breaking out between the two otherwise friendly towns. Town leaders in York joked about building a wall on their southern border, while Kittery residents imagined marching a militia northward.
But the issue is actually a serious one, municipal officials now say, and it needs to be settled.

The land in question is still largely wooded, but is in an area that has been developed in recent years. A border adjustment wouldn’t change anyone’s property ownership, but it would affect where some pay taxes, vote and go to school and which town maintains a cemetery. It could also change how that Route 1 property is developed.

Amaral believes York’s motivation to take this issue to court comes from a single property owner who is looking to develop property around the disputed border and right now has to comply with zoning in both towns. The property owner, who is not identified in town records, “is not happy with what Kittery has said” about how the property can be developed, she told the town council in late March.

Kittery has submitted a Freedom of Access Act request to York for all public records – including letters, emails, texts and social media messages – between town officials and past and present owners of the property at 524 U.S. Route 1. Amaral told the town council she suspects this will give the town a better sense of why York is pressing the border issue now.

A LONG HISTORY
Kittery, incorporated in 1647, is the oldest town in Maine and originally included the towns now known as Eliot, Berwick, North Berwick and South Berwick.

In November 1652, commissioners from the Massachusetts Bay Colony arrived in Kittery, intent on annexing what was then known as the Province of Maine up to modern-day Cape Porpoise. On Nov. 20, 42 inhabitants of Kittery signed a declaration acknowledging they would henceforth be subject to the Government of Massachusetts Bay.

Two days later, the commissioners traveled northeast to Gorgeana, where inhabitants had assembled at the house of Nicholas Davis. By the end of the day, they had taken the same oath as those in Kittery. Georgeana was reincorporated in 1652 as York, named for York, England, and was one of the last Royalist strongholds taken by the Puritans in the English Civil Wars.

Under the Articles of Submission signed in 1652, Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered the towns to set up up their borders. In 1794, Massachusetts insisted that each town create a map because many towns were in disputes over their boundaries. The borders on the maps created that year of Kittery and York did not completely match, but no one seemed to worry at the time.

Plan of Kittery, made by Benjamin Parker, dated November 1794 Massachusetts Archives
The border debate picked up in 2018, after the survey.

The following year, Todd Frederick, chairman of the York Board of Selectmen, sent his counterpart in Kittery a letter outlining York’s position that the border between their towns is a straight line established in 1652. He said the meandering line shown on local tax maps is inconsistent with the legally established border and asked Kittery to work with York to properly identify the “proper straight-line border” or ask the court to settle the matter.

Frederick cited a copy of a report that settled a contested border between York and Eliot to bolster York’s opinion that its border with Kittery is a straight line.

Eliot took York to court in 1991 to establish the boundary between the towns. The three-member commission established by a York County Superior Court judge determined the border between York and Eliot was a straight line.

Kittery officials disagree with York’s opinion that the ruling on the York-Eliot border has any bearing on the current border dispute. The report produced to settle the York-Eliot border issue did not review any historical records after 1810, when Eliot separated from Kittery, and ignored over 200 years of applicable historical record and all of the perambulations required by law, the town attorney wrote last month in a motion to dismiss York’s complaint.

Plan of York surveyed by Daniel Sewall, dated 1794-5. Massachusetts Archives

In a November 2019 response to Frederick’s letter, Judith Spiller, chair of the Kittery Town Council, wrote that the boundaries set forth by the Articles of Submission presented an alternate line to the one that had been used previously and that Kittery has used since. The town council, she said, believes the boundary between the two communities is not the one set forth in those articles but the one noted “in all relevant contemporary and historical documents.

“All U.S. Geological (Survey), State of Maine, Town of York and Town of Kittery maps and documents support the current and historical boundary between our two friendly communities,” she wrote.
Spiller disputed the validity of the border noted in the articles on other grounds as well.

“It is important to note that this particular boundary was established through aggression, imposed by decree from the Massachusetts Bay Colony,” she wrote. “Rife with arbitrary limitations set forth and enforced by armed militia, it reflected neither the established property lines of the times nor those before or after it.”

The border between Kittery and York on land along Route 1. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Amaral, Kittery’s town manager, and York Town Manager Stephen Burns each said they can’t comment on the dispute because it is in litigation.

BORDER GOES TO COURT
It is rare that disputes about municipal borders in Maine end up in court, but they are bound to pop up occasionally in a state whose town lines were set hundreds of years ago and often marked with stone walls, tree or granite markers that have long since disappeared.

In the complaint it filed in York County Superior Court in February, York asked the court to appoint three commissioners and empower them to determine the “true and correct” common boundary, describe the boundary line “by curves and distances,” and set markers to indicate the established border.

York argues in its filing that the 1652 description of the common boundary said it began at the head of Brave Boat Harbor and then ran “in a straight line to the head of ye Southwest branch of ye River of York.” The two towns, it said in its complaint, cooperatively identified that straight-line boundary through perambulations, or walking the line, in 1695, 1740, 1779 and 1794.

But the town said that waypoints that marked the boundary caused it to stray from its proper course and become a meandering line, not the straight line between two defined monuments identified in 1652.

Kittery has asked the court to dismiss York’s complaint, arguing that the situation should have been resolved long ago and York has not demonstrated a controversy sufficient to justify judicial review.
No hearings have been scheduled and a decision on the motion to dismiss could be a month or two away.

If the case is not dismissed, the court would likely appoint three commissioners with surveying experience to establish the exact location of the border.

Stephen Langsdorf of PretiFlaherty, who represents Kittery, said he “strongly believes the motion to dismiss will be granted because York did not comply with the requirement that border perambulations to confirm municipal boundaries occur every five years.” That process, which requires representatives of the town to walk the border, was required by law from 1820 to 2003.

“The point of the law was to timely identify any disputes about municipal borders,” Langsdorf said. “In other words, the case should have been resolved 200 years ago.”

Jeeze what a waste of time and money

It used to be the Wild West out there in the world of license plates, but alas, that's all going away...

[HEADING=2]Maine publishes standards meant to curb vulgar vanity plates[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2022/05/05/maine-publishes-standards-meant-to-curb-vulgar-vanity-plates/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2022/05/05/maine-publishes-standards-meant-to-curb-vulgar-vanity-plates/')

By Megan Gray May 5, 2022

If you have an explicit license plate in Maine, it might be about to get bleeped.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has released a draft rule to implement [a law passed last year]('https://www.pressherald.com/2021/10/17/vulgar-license-plates-are-out-as-hundreds-of-new-laws-take-effect-in-maine/') that allows her office to reject or recall more vanity plates based on profanity, sexually explicit messages or references to genitalia.

“Incitement to violence, profanity, ethnic, racial, religious, or other slurs, or reference to illegal or criminal activity – all of which unfortunately can be seen on Maine registration plates today – are all directly contrary to the public interest,” Bellows said. “The First Amendment protects your right to have any bumper sticker you want, but it doesn’t force the state to issue official registration plates that subject children in our communities to obscenity or profanity.”

The proposed rule still needs to go through a public comment process, but the document puts the state one step closer to taking vulgar or derogatory tags off the road.

The rule sets out the standards and the review process for new vanity plate applications. It also codifies the processes for making a complaint about an existing plate and for appealing a recall.

A Vanity Plate Review Committee made up of staff from the Division of Vehicle Services will review the messages “from the perspective of an ordinary observer of the plate.” They’ll consult a variety of resources, including Urban Dictionary (a crowdsourced online dictionary for words and phrases) and an actual dictionary. Didn’t mean it that way? Doesn’t matter.

The committee will recall or reject plates that:
• falsely suggest an association with a public institution or a government or a government agency;
• duplicate another plate;
• encourage violence or that may result in an act of violence or other unlawful activity because of the content of the language or configuration of letters and numbers;
• are profane or obscene;
• make a derogatory reference to age, race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry or national origin, religion or physical or mental disability;
• connote genitalia or relate to sexual acts;
• contain language or a configuration of characters that include forms of slang terms, abbreviations, phonetic spellings, or mirror images of a word or term otherwise prohibited by this section, even if expressed in a language other than English.

If your current plate gets recalled, you’ll get notice by mail and have 14 days to request a hearing or apply for a different vanity plate. If you don’t, you’ll automatically get a new registration and boring standard plate.

Emily Cook, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office, said no plates have been recalled yet and none will be until the rule is implemented. She couldn’t say for sure how many might be, but Bellows told the Legislature that a cursory search of the more than 119,000 vanity plates on the road found at least 119 that included the most common “four-letter” words.

Maine relaxed its rules for vanity plates in 2015. It stopped screening for general vulgarity and instead only rejected or recalled plates if they were likely to incite violence. For example, a racial slur or a Nazi slogan would still get you in trouble. The term then-Secretary of State Matt Dunlap used for those plates was [“fighting words.”]('https://www.pressherald.com/2021/10/17/vulgar-license-plates-are-out-as-hundreds-of-new-laws-take-effect-in-maine/') Dunlap didn’t believe the screening process used in Maine could survive a legal challenge.

But [a steady stream of complaints]('https://www.pressherald.com/2019/10/23/vulgar-maine-license-plates-fuel-debate/') prompted lawmakers to crack down, and the Legislature crafted this bill last year with an eye toward lawsuits. Bellows, a former executive director of the ACLU of Maine who took over from Dunlap in 2021, supported the change.

In other states, courts have struck down rules for being too vague or arbitrary. New Hampshire’s Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that regulations barring a man from getting a “COPSLIE” plate violated his free-speech rights. New Hampshire now uses a standard that sets more specific limits, like in the new Maine law.

If you would like to submit comments on the proposed rule, you can do so until 5 p.m. on June 6. They can be emailed to [[email protected]]('https://www.pressherald.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#b4e4c1d6d8ddd7f7dbd9d9d1dac09ae7fbe7f4f9d5dddad19ad3dbc2'), using the subject line “Public Comment, or mailed to the Secretary of State, Attn: Public Comment, 148 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0148. Written comments also can be dropped off at 103 Sewall St. in Augusta, at the office on the second floor of the Nash School Building.

Ah Summah!! Time to rape the tourists!! o_Oo_Oo_Oo_O I sure as hell won't pay $40 for a lobster roll...

[HEADING=2]No shell, big shock: Maine lobster rolls fetch record prices this season[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2022/05/29/no-shell-big-shock-maine-lobster-rolls-fetch-record-prices-this-season/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2022/05/29/no-shell-big-shock-maine-lobster-rolls-fetch-record-prices-this-season/')

By Jordan Andrews May 29, 2022

David Mendez of Puerto Rico prepares to eat his lobster roll at Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster in South Freeport on Friday. Most Maine eateries have raised their lobster roll prices this season in response to across-the-board inflation. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Lobster roll prices are breaking records this season, but the value of Maine lobster meat is only one ingredient in a complex inflationary recipe.

The prices lobstermen are getting at the dock for their catch are down from this time last year, in part because of uncertainty in the global market. Restaurant and lobster shack owners say that while the price of lobster is the biggest factor, there is more that goes into the cost of a roll.

Justin Snyder, dock manager at Beal’s Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor, where a 4.5-ounce lobster roll was going for $41.99 on Wednesday, said the price of lobsters on the dock steadily increasing over the past five years has had a big impact on the cost of producing Maine’s signature summer dish.

The state’s lobster prices reached record highs last year. Maine lobstermen landed 108 million pounds [with a record value of $725 million]('https://www.pressherald.com/2022/02/14/inflation-boosts-2021-maine-lobster-landings-to-record-725-million/'). Southwest Harbor is one of the most competitive harbors in the state where lobstermen can get the highest prices for their catch, Snyder said, but that cost makes up only part of the equation in pricing a lobster roll.

“We’re experiencing the same thing that everybody else is experiencing in the U.S. right now,” he said. “Everything’s more expensive: Plates are more expensive, buns are more expensive, butter is more expensive, labor’s more expensive, and the lobster industry is not immune to those economic conditions.”

A lobster roll at Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster in South Freeport on Friday. Harraseeket is charging $25 for a roll, less than the average price of $30.54, based on an informal survey. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

AVERAGE ROLL PRICE TOPS $30
Last week, the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram surveyed 16 lobster shacks and restaurants and found the average price was $30.54 for a roll, though the sizes are not uniform. Individual prices ranged from $15.95 for a traditional 4-ounce roll at the Zack Shack in Thomaston to $47.99 for a jumbo roll with a full pound of lobster meat at Boothbay Lobster Wharf.

Red’s Eats, off U.S. Route 1 in Wiscasset, was selling its popular lobster rolls for $31 apiece Wednesday. Deborah Gagnon, one of the owners of the roadside eatery, believes it’s worth every penny.

“We do not measure. We pile our rolls high,” she said. “Our guests will get a lobster roll with the entire tail, claws and tails, claw and knuckles, filling the middle of the roll. Pair that with Kate’s Maine Butter and/or extra heavy mayonnaise and it’s 5-star.”

The price for a roll fluctuates daily at Red’s based on the market value of lobster. Gagnon said she always lowers the price of her rolls when the cost of her daily deliveries drops.

Across Route 1 at Sprague’s Lobster in Wiscasset, lobster rolls were selling Wednesday for $28.99 apiece. The Highroller Lobster Co. in Portland was charging $32, and The Travelin’ Lobster in Bar Harbor was charging $26.95.

The price of lobster is generally higher in the spring because supply is low. Many lobstermen are still gearing up for the season and fewer are out harvesting. Further, only more expensive hard-shell lobsters are sold, because lobsters haven’t molted yet. Once the lobsters start shedding, soft-shell lobsters become available. Those fetch a lower price at the dock, because there is less meat in the shells.

It usually takes around four to five hard-shell lobsters, and six to six-and-a-half soft-shell lobsters, to get a pound of meat, according to Brendon Alterio, manager at Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster in South Freeport.

Alterio says he believes his $25 price for a 4-ounce traditional Maine lobster roll served on a hot dog bun is fair.

“It’s higher than last year, but we didn’t go up as high as some people (who) are really charging a lot of money,” he said. “Indeed, we did go up, of course, because we had to pay more for labor and pay more for product. Everything is up. So we had to do what we had to do, but we wanted to be fair, and work on volume.”

But this year’s prices on the dock – around $6 a pound at Cranberry Isles Fishermen’s Co-Op on Thursday – are actually down from last year at this time. Snyder attributed this to Canadian processors not being willing to pay as much as they did last year.

“The really big fish are the ones that really control the price, not so much the lobster dealers,” he said.

Janet Ray Jorgensen of New Gloucester watches as her husband, Paisha Jorgensen, digs into his lobster roll at Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster in South Freeport on Friday. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

RISKY GLOBAL MARKET
The drop in what Canadian companies are willing to pay at Maine docks comes from what Stewart Lamont called “a desire to reflect a massively altered appetite the world over due to the riskiest environment in your entire life.” Lamont is managing director at Tangier Lobster Co., a Canadian exporter of live lobster to Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

He noted that the live and processed markets are very different but offered his perspective on Canadian imports of Maine lobster, which he said are dominated by processors looking to buy soft-shell lobsters to process into value-added frozen products.

“There is less national and international demand for live and value-added frozen seafood products today than at any time in my (42-year) career,” he said. “Company after company in all parts of the lobster trade are concerned about it at this moment. A correction is taking place not of our making. Consumers the world over are speaking by not buying.”

Lamont said four main factors driving down the price of lobster globally right now are lack of demand in Asia, particularly because of COVID-19 restrictions in China; lack of demand in Europe because of the war in Ukraine; lack of demand in America because of high inflation; and a “hangover” from the exceptionally high prices of live and processed lobster last year. Last year, people were more willing to pay for extravagant lobster meals, he said, but now they are more worried about the price of gas.

It is uncertain how much this perception of risk will translate to lower wholesale prices for lobster on the dock. Some lobstermen are concerned because they are facing inflated fuel and bait prices as well as [added costs from new gear regulations]('https://www.pressherald.com/2022/05/01/maine-lobstermen-fear-disaster-as-new-gear-regulations-take-effect/') meant to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales.

“If you can’t make a profit, or not enough to justify the time and effort, then there is no sense in fishing,” Freeport lobsterman Andy Spalding wrote May 21 on a Facebook thread about lobster prices. “If that bait and fuel is worth more than the catch itself, it’s over.”

Spalding said in an interview, “Lobster is already lower (in) price than it was at any time last year, and fuel prices and inflation have skyrocketed. How is lobster the only commodity that goes down with inflation? It defies basic economics.”

Janet Ray Jorgensen of New Gloucester watches as her husband, Paisha Jorgensen, gives the thumbs-up after digging into his lobster roll at Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster in South Freeport on Friday. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

STABLE DEMAND, SHAKY SUPPLY
At Graffam Bros. Seafood Market in Rockport, owner Leni Gronros is worried that new regulations on lobster gear will prevent some lobstermen from fishing this year, which will mean supply will be low while demand remains the same.

“Typically, this time of year is still people gearing up and getting ready to go,” he said. “I hear a lot of people are not going to go with the price of fuel and the new gear regulations. They’re just going to step back a bit and see what happens before they gear up. And if they don’t like it, they just won’t go. It’s very concerning to us.

“That is going to be a huge factor in the next year or two. As the equipment prices go up, costs are going to go up and there’ll be (fewer) people fishing.”

Meanwhile, he says, there is “huge demand” for the iconic Maine sandwich. He sells 200 to 300 a day in the summer.

In March and April, there was so little supply that Gronros was charging $45 for a lobster roll and $105 for a pound of picked lobster meat. His lobster rolls are now down to $24, which he said has been standard for the past two summers, since the pandemic hit and everything changed. The pre-pandemic price was $18.

If costs do go down with more supply and lower lobster prices this summer, he said, “I can’t say I’ll lower my price a whole lot on the lobster roll. I’ll take that time to actually make up a little ground.”

The menu board at Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster in South Freeport. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

TOURISTS PAY A PREMIUM
Marc Nighman, general manager of the Cranberry Isles Fishermen’s Co-op, said that while the price has been fluctuating quite a bit this spring, falling from about $12 to $13 per pound to $6 on Thursday, he does not foresee the price dropping this year to a point where lobstermen will stop fishing, which did happen in 2012.

Business publishing company Urner Barry reported last week that the price drop from $12.35 per pound on April 1 to $9.35 per pound on May 1 was the largest in one month since 2018.

“Every fisherman fishes differently, and it really depends on what their business model is, what’s affordable to them,” Nighman said. “You got somebody in a very small boat, who fishes by himself and he can burn very little fuel and just fish (near shore). Or you have these big boats that have three crew that go way offshore. Obviously, they have to catch a certain amount of lobsters to cover the cost of the boat crew and the bait, which is substantially more than the little guy fishing out of a small boat by himself inside the harbor.”

Nighman said Maine’s strong tourism sector and the industry’s efforts to add value and open new markets is helping Maine weather the storm happening in the global market. With more processing plants existing in Maine now than a decade ago and investing in new processing technology, more lobsters can stay in the local economy and less shipping is needed.

“The technology has come so far that the frozen and fresh meat products are so good now that there’s a higher demand for them instead of shipping live as much,” he said. “Maine is very popular in New England … to go to Maine and have a lobster roll, so I think that helps our pricing.”

And that can translate to higher prices for fishermen here.

At Beal’s Lobster Pier, to prepare for the projected high number of tourists coming to Acadia National Park over Memorial Day weekend, Snyder said he will be paying a little more for lobster on the dock this weekend to ensure he has enough to meet demand.

“I will pay what I need to pay to get lobsters in the building, especially at this early point in the season, where the volume of the catch is a fraction of what it’s going to be in July and August,” he said. “It’s very important, especially this week being a holiday weekend. We’re going to see a huge influx of tourists appear in Acadia National Park, so it behooves me to make sure that I have plenty of product to feed my guests.”

if I’m gonna eat lobster ? it’s gonna be for as many I can get @ $100. Boiled in a 5 gallon pot, cracked open on a picnic table wit potatoes, corn, ice tea and a roll of paper towels… cellfish…
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This is how I like My Lobbstaaa Delivered By my good friend and he also boils/cooks them for me

This is how I like My Lobbstaaa Delivered By my good friend and he also boils/cooks them for me

Thats recent or a past picture????

Thats recent or a past picture????

Past kinda

Past kinda

So was mine…

so the price at the docks is up $2 from last year and the retail fish market price here is up about $14-16!! Someone is making a fortune, and it's not the fishermen.

so the price at the docks is up $2 from last year and the retail fish market price here is up about $14-16!! Someone is making a fortune, and it's not the fishermen.

The dock price is going below last year's price, and nobody is lowering their retail prices...

[MEDIA=youtube]EHYlL4r6hlM[/MEDIA]

Gordon Ramsey @ 7:00 NatGeo has him doing a lobster ? special… cellfish…
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Welcome to Maine

Gordon Ramsey @ 7:00 NatGeo has him doing a lobster ? special… cellfish…
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What’s the name of the show I’m trying to find it

What’s the name of the show I’m trying to find it

Gordon Ramsey uncharted…

Imagine the outrage if an LI Golf Course tried to do this to their resident winged vermin???

[HEADING=2]Resident Canada geese to be euthanized in Rangeley[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2022/06/23/resident-canada-geese-to-be-euthanized-in-rangeley/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2022/06/23/resident-canada-geese-to-be-euthanized-in-rangeley/')

By Donna M. Perry June 23, 2022

RANGELEY — A management plan is being enacted to reduce the resident Canada goose population in the town and Rangeley Lake area that calls for the use of carbon dioxide to euthanize the waterfowl.
The geese have become very abundant and accustomed to human presence, and are an imminent threat to human health, according to authorities.

“This behavior has led to an alarming amount of droppings in recreational areas which can spread disease to people, and has resulted in damaged lawns, and costly cleanup and repair efforts,” Robin Dyer, the state director of (U.S. Department of Agriculture) Animal and Plant Health Inspections, Wildlife Services who is also a certified wildlife biologist, wrote in an email. “In this situation, Wildlife Services has worked with the cooperator for over a year, attending meetings and providing numerous non-lethal options including harassment techniques, and chemical application options which remove the attractiveness of the lawn to geese.”

Nonlethal methods failed to remedy the situation because of the over-abundance of geese.
“After consultation with the USDA and a public comment period, the Goose Damage Management Plan was authorized by the (Rangeley) Board of Selectmen,” Rangeley Town Manager Joe Roach wrote in an email. “The approved plan was subsequently directed to me for operational implementation with the wildlife experts.”

There was a 15-day period from April 29 to May 13 that people could comment on the proposed damage management plan.

Roach estimated that there are roughly 75 to 100 geese. The geese frequent the beach area, town park and green spaces, and other places. There are also geese at the airport, which Roach estimated could be from the same group.

Resident Canada geese are those that breed and nest in the United States, Dyer wrote. The population of these residents increased 16-fold from 1970 to 2009 (from 230,000 to 3.89 million). Goose strikes to aviation and damage complaints regarding resident Canada geese increased at the same time. In urban areas, they have few predators and hunting cannot be used to control the population, she wrote.

U.S. Wildlife Services only responds when the public or partnering agencies request assistance. The service is permitted to conduct wildlife damage management and must adhere to all rules, laws and regulations set by wildlife management agencies.

Given the severity of the situation, the abundance of geese, and imminent threat to human health and safety, Wildlife Services was requested to conduct a capture effort which will result in the humane euthanasia of the geese, Dyer wrote.

Wildlife Services “strictly adheres to the American Veterinary Medical Association guidelines for humane euthanasia which in this case requires the use of carbon dioxide. Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has become a serious concern in birds nationwide and can be carried in many species of waterfowl, including geese. This disease not only jeopardizes the health of wild birds but is even more impactful to domestic poultry populations,” Dyer wrote.

Due to the elevated concern for the avian influence, those species that can carry the disease must be treated with extreme caution; the disposition of carcasses cannot be donated or come in contact with other birds, according to Dyer.

“Because of this, the carcasses will be composted in a manner that complies with all disease precautionary measures. Lethal removal and disposition are outcomes permitted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (the governing agency for all migratory birds) and agreed upon by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries Wildlife,” she wrote.