Bomb Threat At Ralph Lauren Store Briefly Shuts Down Main Street

Nantucket Police shut down Main Street Friday morning after receiving a bomb threat against the Ralph Lauren store at 16 Main Street.

Officers responded to the area around 5:44 a.m. after the threat was called into the police department's non-emergency phone line.

"At 5:44 a.m. we received the first of several calls that reported that there was a bomb at the Ralph Lauren store," Nantucket Police Lt. Angus MacVicar said. "With that information, we responded and made notification to the Massachusetts State Police bomb squad and the Nantucket Fire Department. We responded and evacuated the surrounding area. There were not a lot of residents but there were a few that were evacuated. As a result of the roads being shut down, we put the reverse truck route in order, and working with the State Police bomb squad we cleared the building."

The entire police shift - a total of five marked cruisers - responded to the area and cordoned off Main Street with yellow police tape, keeping vehicles and pedestrians away. MacVicar said they searched the entire Ralph Lauren building and did not find anything out of the ordinary. By 7 a.m., they had cleared the scene.

"We're working with different agencies to try to track down the number (the bomb threat) came from," MacVicar said. "We're not certain, but it might be the fact that Ralph Lauren is a known name and store outside Nantucket - that is a possibility as to why this particular building was chosen. With the information we have, it appears it (the bomb threat call) did not come from the island if it even came from this country. We're trying to track it down and we do have some leads."

It was the third bomb threat made on Nantucket in the first three months of 2024. Back in January, a bomb threat was made by email to the Nantucket Probate Court, prompting the evacuation of the Town & County Building on Broad Street and a similar response from law enforcement and NFD. Earlier in March, a patron at The Chicken Box made a bomb threat that prompted an evacuation of the popular bar on Dave Street.