On the Outer Banks, a shrimp ban would rewrite menus — and livelihoods

In a kitchen that runs on the tide, Vicki Basnight’s crew was cleaning 300 pounds of shrimp ahead of the dinner rush. Basnight, who calls herself the “jack of all trades” of the restaurant, has spent three decades serving North Carolina seafood at Basnight’s Lone Cedar Café and, each fall working the water herself.

“I also do commercial fishing during shrimping season,” she said. “We are a rare breed that still commercial fish as women. To me, it’s in my blood.”

As lawmakers in Raleigh debate whether to restrict shrimp trawling in inshore waters, Basnight says the fight is personal. The shrimp she buys is harvested in the same sounds she grew up on.

“I love it. I love every bit of being on the water. It’s not like work to me,” she said. “It’s always been in the Roanoke Sound and that’s just been a passion of mine. It’s heritage. Really, everything I learned, I learned from my granddad.”

That heritage, and the local supply chain it supports, was thrust into uncertainty this summer when a last-minute amendment in the General Assembly sought to ban shrimp trawling in North Carolina’s sounds and within a half-mile of the coast. The measure, which supporters said would protect fish habitat, passed the Senate but stalled in the House. Senate leader Phil Berger has said the push is not over.

“It’s our belief that continuing to allow trawling in the inland waters is detrimental to the state as a whole and our aquatic fish populations,” Berger said.

Basnight drove from the Outer Banks to the legislature to rally with watermen and seafood workers.

“It’s a big camaraderie too,” Basnight said. “And it was nice to see in Raleigh when we went up for the legislature, and to see all the different people of all walks of life coming together.”

Shrimpers counter that modern gear and long-standing rules limit environmental harm, and Basnight says shrimpers steer clear of sensitive nursery areas.

“There’s so many areas that you can’t shrimp in … up in the marshes and all up in the shallows,” she said. “We’re not shrimping in there.”

For restaurants like Lone Cedar, the stakes are immediate. Basnight has built her brand and payroll on serving what nearby boats land.

“I want to serve shrimp in here that I grew up eating, because it’s the best in the world,” she said.

Basnight says local seafood is more transparent than imports and keeps money on the waterfront. That’s why she says the restuarant has “stuck for 30 years to buying local seafood,” with shrimp a year-round bestseller. “If we lose that, we will lose business,” she said. “We have a lot of employees counting on us to make their living.”

A ban, she warns, would ripple past her dining room — fewer shifts for staff, fewer checks to fish houses and fewer reasons for visitors to seek out the coast’s signature plate. “That’s where their livelihood comes from, right here,” she said of the local shrimping industry. “They don’t want to deplete that. They don’t want to harm that.”

For Basnight, who says she has “57 years of being on the water,” the debate is about more than regulation, it’s about a way of life and what lands on local plates. “I love that I can feed my family on the shrimp that I catch, and then I get to feed all these people at Lone Cedar what these other folks are catching,” she said.

For now, the boats keep working and the kitchen keeps humming. Basnight hopes lawmakers listen to the waterfront before the fight returns.