Point Abino Lighthouse tours still limited
Tours of the town’s Point Abino Lighthouse have begun for the season.
Fort Erie kicked in nearly $1 million toward a restoration project completed in 2012, but the lighthouse is inside a private, upscale gated community with little public access. To reach the lighthouse, the town has had to negotiate with homeowners from the Point Abino Association for an access agreement to provide a limited set of tour dates.
For the rest of the non-gated-community public in Fort Erie, the lighthouse is available only via bus tours that run eight times each year.
The town has to cough up an extra $4,000 each year for the right to run its limited set of bus tours out to the lighthouse during pre-approved weekends in the summer, when the private homeowners association allows the public to enter. To date, the town has paid the private homeowners more than $56,000 in access fees to operate the bus tours. Only about 800 people attend the tour on an average year, prompting the town’s economic development and tourism corporation to declare it a moneylosing operation, rather than an economic generator.
Since the town took ownership from the federal government in 2003 — when dozens of lighthouses across the country were declared surplus and put up for sale — the town has repeatedly negotiated various contracts with the private homeowners for access; however, in 2015 a new agreement was reached that allowed for a one-year contract that would be automatically renewed each year with a small increase.
For the previous 12 years, the town paid the same access fee each year, but with the new contract the private homeowners receive an annual one per cent increase to the fee each time the contract is renewed.
The new agreement also made some minor changes to benefit the public, such as increased access for people with disabilities — the previous contract didn’t allow guide dogs to enter the gated community — and an increase in the number of permitted visitors per bus to 25, from 20.
Visitors to the site can’t take their own vehicle, but must take the town-operated bus out to the lighthouse, and pets are not permitted past the gate at the edge of the private homeowners association.
Public access to the historical Point Abino Lighthouse is available for seven remaining dates this summer: June 23, July 14 and 28, Aug. 11 and 25, Sept. 8 and 22.
Tours run twice daily, and tickets cost
$6.