Bar Harbor neglects its tourists
We were 4 couples from Quebec, French Canadians visiting Bar Harbor last June 2009. A very coveted tourist clientele seems if I trust the comments of my owner Motel where we stayed my girlfriend and me. Besides, what city in 2009 now has the means to rebuff its tourists in times of economic crisis? Although the town of Bar Harbor in Maine in the United States! After a dinner at the restaurant with our friends in the evening, we go by car from the parking lot my wife and me with a light burned in the front. We are ¾ mile from our hotel. Quite normal to be arrested by the police in such circumstances we told our self. But because we confess to have taken a few glasses of wine and because I didn’t manage well enough tests authorized by the officer, I was led like a criminal to the police station in handcuffs for a breathalyser test that I succeeded. Annoyed, the officer decides suddenly to accuse me of driving endanger, a criminal offense without much impact in Maine, but subject to a license suspension of one year in Quebec. This is it for you guy!! ... You should have done point 08 as I thought! It'll cost to you $ 440 U.S. to get out of here, then we are sorry for having your car towed. That’s the way it's working here in Bar Harbor! It will cost $ 140 away tomorrow to get it back ... It's very good for the economy! We were humiliated my girlfriend and I ... we felt like been an old black and white film under the yoke of an old rogue cop a little corn in Missouri with a toothpick between the teeth that likes to act home!
We were not even offered to call a taxi to go back to the motel ... Go tourists…out of our police station.... You've done enough to waste time!
Imagine, it took us to return here 4 months later to defend ourselves in courts of justice and recover our honour because the charges had no meaning for the judge. A joke ... The same court would not have accepted such a trial, but a good guess that it occupies the city officials.
Who loses in this story? It is certain that my girlfriend and I have spent several thousand dollars and much time to defend our self and get my license back, but we have the consolation of telling us, my friends and me, we never come back here in Bar Harbor! Small quick calculation; 2 000 $ per person to spend a week's holiday there, multiply it by the number of people to whom we speak, and I do not count everyone else to whom the police have already booked or will book the same spell, you will agree with me that it is time that the town of Bar Harbor changes its Wild West habits! This way of welcoming the world it costs a small fortune! ... And what of their restaurants that we fly by loading 20% mandatory tip when you are a group of 6 or more people, ostensibly it is a table more difficult to manage! Not but who they are? If they want to receive a good tip, so they start by offering us a good table with a smile and they will realize, as elsewhere in the world, that Quebecers are known to be excellent customers!
A Quebecers and all his gang!