KEYSTONE — Sim Tovani rushed between bar, kitchen and diners’ tables. She mixed drinks, took orders and ran to retrieve steaming plates of Brewhouse Burgers and bowls of Dungeness crab chowder from the kitchen’s sole chef.
Until two weeks ago, Tovani, general manager of The Public House, rarely worked in the dining room.
Now that’s all she does.
Cancellation of car-ferry service from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend has caused business at the restaurant to drop by at least 60 percent to 70 percent, she said.
For the first time in the restaurant’s 12-year history, permanent employees were laid off.
At stores and restaurants throughout Port Townsend and across Admiralty Inlet on central Whidbey Island, business has plummeted since the state’s Steel Electric-class car ferries stopped operating Nov. 20.
Families and friends are canceling get-togethers because of the inconvenience of relying on passenger-only ferries. Sailors, teachers and businessmen who use the ferry to commute are turning to co-workers and family for rides to and from ferry terminals.
A week after Washington State Ferries unexpectedly stopped operating car ferries on Port Townsend waters, The Public House laid off three workers. Last week, another was let go.
“It’s horrible,” Tovani said. “Everybody’s very, very nervous and upset about it. We’re concerned about how long it’s going to last.”
If ferry service isn’t restored soon, some Port Townsend residents predict tourism will diminish and many of the town’s quaint shops, bed and breakfasts and restaurants will close.
“I think Port Townsend could dry up,” said Jackee Ford, owner of Five Fingers Handcrafted Gifts in Port Townsend.
It’s unclear when car-carrying ferries will return to the route between Port Townsend and Keystone. The state’s four Steel Electrics are the oldest ferries operating on salt water in the U.S. Repairs to the 80-year-old boats are starting to look too expensive. Building replacements would take time — a minimum of two to three years, according to the latest ferry system estimates.
The Steel Electrics — the Klickitat, Quinault, Illahee and Nisqually — are the only ferries in the state’s fleet that can navigate the narrow, shallow harbor at Keystone. Without those ferries, car ferry service is impossible between Port Townsend and Whidbey.
“That would be a disaster,” said Sarah Richards, president of the Central Whidbey Chamber of Commerce. “It would be really bad for Port Townsend and it would definitely be bad for Whidbey Island over the long run. To me, that’s an unacceptable prognosis.”
Since the switch to a passenger-only ferry, nearly no one has been coming to the visitor center in Coupeville. Operating hours have been reduced, Richards said.
An average of 305 people a day have used the passenger-only ferry, the Snohomish, since Nov. 27. That’s down from the Keystone-to-Port Townsend route’s average of 1,450 riders per day in December 2005, when ridership numbers were last recorded, according to Hadley Greene, communications manager for the ferry system. That figure only accounts for drivers and walk-ons, not passengers in cars.
In Oak Harbor, 15 miles north of Keystone, business owners say they haven’t lost much money yet due to ferry woes. However, almost everyone in town knows of someone inconvenienced by the changes.
Eileen Dove’s father drove three hours out of his way from Belfair through city traffic to visit her in Oak Harbor on Thanksgiving. The Steel Electric ferries had been removed from service two days earlier, and the Snohomish wasn’t running yet.
“People who are getting elderly and just drive around a little town every day don’t take a three-hour commute through Tacoma and Seattle well,” she said. “They’re used to going 30 miles per hour.”
Joyce Kieviet, a 76-year-old Oak Harbor homemaker, is angry that ferry officials let preservation work on the Steel Electric ferries slide.
“It’s a mystery why all the ferries were johnny bugged at one time,” she said. “Where was the maintenance on those buggers? … Our island is stranded.”
James Dorcé describes the situation as “crazy.” A culinary specialist with the Navy, he relied on the Steel Electric ferries to commute from his Port Orchard home to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Oak Harbor.
“If I knew this was going to be an issue, I probably would have sold my house so I wouldn’t have to deal with it,” he said, as he rode the passenger ferry home Friday.
He used to drive his car onto the ferry and to and from the base. Now he relies on his wife, Navy buses and friends to ferry him on land.
The disruption of ferry service has slashed in half business at Mud Cat espresso and gifts in Port Townsend, according to owner C.J. Colbert. The Canadians who reliably bought ice cream and candles at the dock-side shop have stopped coming, she said.
While she misses the customers the car-ferries brought, she misses even more the picturesque sight of a white and green Steel Electric nosing toward the dock.
“It was like our heart here,” she said sadly. “It kept everything running. It kept people moving in and out, and now we have this tiny heartbeat that’s erratic and running crazy. It’s a loss emotionally for a lot of people. It is for me, not because of my job or anything, but because I really loved it.”
At The Public House, Tovani said she is exhausted from playing the part of the restaurant’s only daytime waitress, bartender and hostess. She wants the bigger ferries back — soon.
And she wants lawmakers and ferry officials to stop playing games and level with ferry communities whether the Steel Electrics can be repaired or must be replaced.
There’s a lot of rumors, she said. Some predict service again in February. Some say a year or more.
“No one knows what to believe,” she said, leaning on the bar. “There’s a lot of fear.”
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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