Frank King, owner of the Island Pride grocery and gas station, says he's grateful for the vacationers. But without the business that comes from crabbers' income, he says, he will have to close - and lay off six employees.
"I'm going to tell you flat-out, it's going to kill us," King said of the new rules. "This is a fishing village. And I can't sustain them if these guys can't sustain me."
When King took over the store eight years ago, he adapted to the island's rhythm - a lean winter, followed by a good summer and an even more lucrative fall. During the winter, crabbers buy items like dish soap and cereal on credit; they pay up in the fall, when the cash comes in.
The island's main restaurant, too, will suffer. Old Salty's mainstay is watermen. The eatery also gets customers from the tours that come through to watch pickers - most of them Mexican women - tease the fluffy meat out of the crab. At least 18 bus tours are scheduled for the fall.
Most of them will be canceled, said manager Jay Newcomb: there won't be anything to see.
In addition to trying to persuade Maryland to roll back restrictions, the island's crab processors are lobbying Congress to let several hundred workers return to this country each year under a visa program known as H2B. Most of the processing houses got their workers for this season, but legislation still has not passed to let them come back next season.
Now that the workers are here, the processors are obligated to pay them - even when they have nothing to do.
It's enough to keep Tommy Powley glued to his cell phone, telling everyone who will listen that the island's way of life is dying. He wants to get back on his boat, the Maybe-Baby, and start the season, but the more pressing business is to make sure there is a season at all.
"I didn't want my son to get into this business because I knew it was a dying business," Powley said. "But no way did I think that it would be the state that would destroy it."
rona.kobell@baltsun.com
