SALEM — Each year, the city sees more people licensed to be tour guides. A new proposal from the mayor’s office would help “increase enforcement to keep pace,” but it arrived alongside immediate opposition from tour guides fearing damage to their livelihoods.
The City Council received the proposed language at its regular April 11 meeting and sent the matter to its Community and Economic Development committee for review.
“This is the start of a very long process,” Council President Ty Hapworth said at the outset of the public comment portion of the meeting that was packed with tour guides. “There will be more opportunities for public input, and you can always email the councilors if you have further questions or concerns you want to pass along.”
As written (tinyurl.com/ymn7z9zz), the proposal would create a three-tiered system for public guide licenses — there is just a one-time $30 examination fee today, according to city ordinances.
As of Jan. 1, 2025, the proposed tiers would cost the following:
- Licenses for groups of 10 or less: $150
- For groups of 11 to 29: $250
- For groups of 30 to 40: $350
Guides who don’t use any form of amplification, after Jan. 1, 2025, can have $50 of the fee waived. Fines for violating the ordinance would also more than double, from the current $25, $50 and $100 for first, second, and subsequent violations, to $100, $200 and $300.
Three further prohibitions are proposed as well:
- No tour guide shall “stop a tour to point out or impart information if within 25 feet of another stopped tour”
- Tour guides won’t “conduct a tour with more than 40 participants”
- Tour guides will take a “one-time safety and compliance briefing” with the Salem Police Department before running any tours
Mayor Dominick Pangallo said city officials would be more vigilant about rogue tour guides.
“In conjunction with this ordinance change, we plan to operationally increase enforcement of public guide activities starting this year,” he wrote in a letter to the council accompanying the proposed language. “The number of licensed guides has increased from 28 when the ordinance was first adopted to 175 this year, prompting a need to increase enforcement to keep pace.”
Thursday night, the public comment period at the start of the council meeting was dominated by the proposal, with a number of current tour guides on hand to oppose it.
“You’re giving multimillion-dollar developers millions of dollars in tax breaks. You’re also giving tax breaks to high-end businesses of tens of thousands of dollars,” tour guide April Newman said. “How can you justify attacking employees of what’s primarily a bootstrap industry?”
Tour guide Jeffrey Lilley said he and his peers “feel distinctly that we were left out of any conversations.
“I think the last time any of us had a conversation with any city councilors was a year-and-a-half ago,” he said. “This blindsided us. We found out about it in the past 24 hours, and last night, big group chat, we’re all foaming at the mouth. I’m glad to hear this is going to (committee) and there will be room for further discussion.”
Beth Crowley, owner of Witch City Walking Tours, said the increase in fees would shut a lot of local tours down. They’d cost her $13,000 each year, a price she said she’d be unable to pay.
“I’m a small business,” Crowley said. “I live here in Salem, so I’m not one of these conglomerates from out-of-state. We need to have the money come from somewhere, but we need to really think about this, because it simply isn’t fair.”
Ward 3 Councilor Patricia “Patti” Morsillo reiterated that “there’s still a lot of discussion” to be had on the proposal. “We need some public feedback on this.”
Contact Dustin Luca at 978-338-2523 or DLuca@salemnews.com. Follow him at facebook.com/dustinluca or on Twitter @DustinLucaSN.
