Cyclops Cycles’ Mud Bay glassblowing tour permit denied

The planning commission denied a controversial application for glassblowing tours at Viking Cove last Thursday after a wave of public comment from Mud Bay residents.

The tours would have brought visitors to the glass-blowing studio of resident Bill Chetney, where operation was planned to be contracted out to Cyclops Cycles owners Andrew and Natassja Letchworth, with Natassja providing the glass-blowing expertise. 

The Letchworths pitched the tour as a low-impact way to fund glass-blowing in Haines, which is costly due to propane needed for the furnace. “The intention is not a big money maker with the cruise lines, it’s to have a way to cover the cost of glassblowing,” said Nattasja Letchworth. She said in the past she has hosted lessons in the shop for the high-school art club.

The proposed tour schedule would have included operation on 14 cruise-ship days over the course of the year, and then a day open to locals at a discounted rate following each cruise-ship day. Cruise-ship days would have hosted three tours of four people each per day, and classes for locals would have had a maximum of eight participants. 

However, Mud Bay residents raised concerns over both the tour itself and the track record of landowner Bill Chetney. Of the two, the second topic was the bigger issue for residents and planning commissioners. Public commenters cast the tour as the latest in a long-running dispute with Chetney over noise and traffic. Chetney has a conditional-use permit to host up to 20 guests in rental cabins on his property, and has hosted weddings on the property. 

After hearing residents’ opposition, planning commissioners said that the permit was not “in harmony… with surrounding land uses,” one of the eight conditions a successful application must meet. 

The vote was 4-2, with commissioners Rachel Saitzyk and Eben Sargent dissenting. Commissioner Derek Poinsette said he saw in Mud Bay code “a real intent to not allow commercial operations,” and commission chair Patty Brown said her vote to deny the permit was due to the cumulative impact of Chetney’s existing business. 

Sargent, however, said the commission was meant to consider the merits of the specific application at hand – not a history of issues covered under other permits.