Thanks to new state legislation, ferry workers are better protected from misbehaving passengers.
Gov. Bob Ferguson recently signed into law Senate Bill 5716, which carries harsher penalties for those who assault transit workers. Previously, ferry workers were not included in the list.
The new law expands the locations where a person can be guilty of “unlawful transit conduct” to include the state ferry system. Unlawful transit conduct is defined in statute as including the following activities: smoking, littering, disruptive behavior including spitting or defecating, consuming alcohol or other hazardous substances, defacing property, or falsely impersonating a transit employee, according to the final bill report.
“The vast majority of our customers are appreciative and thoughtful, but we do have problems,” Washington State Ferries Deputy Assistant Secretary John Vezina said in an interview last week.
Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks said the new law will improve safety on the ferries, but it’s unlikely to result in a lot of new cases for his office to prosecute. Currently, prosecutors occasionally receive referrals from law enforcement for disorderly conduct and assault cases on the ferries, but not many. Since it’s not common for law enforcement to be on board to issue citations, crew members often deal with disruptive behavior by issuing trespass notices.
Employees working aboard the vessels have had to contend with being spit on and having cars aimed at them, as well as racist, misogynistic and homophobic epithets. For a while, Vezina noticed a general uptick in these incidents but as ferry service has improved, he said, they have lessened a bit. Passengers may have noticed the addition of the regular “all sail together” announcement and posters around the boats, which started in 2023.
A Washington State Patrol officer told Vezina he had more authority to address bad behavior against a bus driver in Kitsap County than he did on the ferry boats. The new legislation offers the same protection to ferry employees as it does to all the other transit workers in the state.
Violators are subject to a misdemeanor crime, punishable by up to 90 days in jail or a fine of up to $1,000, or both. Ill-intentioned passengers can also be trespassed from the boats.
“It’s not a right,” Vezina said of riding a state ferry.
During a State Ferries’ public meeting last week, Vezina reminded attendees that as frustrated as they might get with leadership, the people showing up at the terminals and the boats every day have been there during COVID, when it’s snowing or 80 degrees out and they deserve their support and respect.
