The Muse's Liquor License To Be Suspended For Repeatedly Selling Alcohol To Minors

This summer, The Muse has made headlines for bringing live music back to the Surfside Road establishment, hosting acts including Natasha Bedingfield, The Fray, and Mt. Joy. But the popular dive bar is in the news for a different reason this week: the Select Board has suspended The Muse’s liquor license for two days late next June, with another four-day suspension held in abeyance through September 15th of 2027, for repeatedly selling alcohol to minors.

“Next time, then they know automatically there’s four or five more nights coming, which is a severe thing,” Select Board member Matt Fee said. “This is happening at every bar on this island every night, and it's not going to stop. It's what happens out here.”

Town staff recommended suspending The Muse’s license for five days and holding a further five days in abeyance for any further violations, but Select Board members felt that punishment was too harsh given how common they believe similar violations are.

“This is not isolated to the Muse,” Select Board member Bob DeCosta said. “This is inevitable. It’s going to happen.”

The Muse was called before the Select Board Wednesday night on 14 counts of selling alcohol to a person under 21 across four dates this summer and one count of “failing to maintain a licensed premise in a safe, orderly, and lawful manner.” Those counts were summarized as four violations, one for each separate date with a violation this summer.

“My concern is it was three nights in a row,” Select Board vice chair Brooke Mohr said. “Somebody on the staff was made aware that those folks were there.”

On three separate occasions, off-duty Nantucket police officers personally observed underage attendees at concerts held at The Muse holding alcoholic beverages. On a fourth occasion, an officer saw a TikTok post from Nantucket Crisps -  the presenting sponsor of The Muse’s summer lineup  - which showed an underage patron holding a beer at a concert at The Muse. The patron was allegedly let in through a back door and not asked to show identification. One document in the Select Board's packet listed him as 17 years old, while another listed him as 19 years old. 

This incident drew particular criticism from DeCosta.

“I definitely think the back door needs more scrutiny,” DeCosta said. “My issue is not the kids that snuck through with the fake IDs, because that’s going to happen. My issue is the back door problem. Somebody intentionally let those kids in, and that is a problem.”

At one of the concerts, staff members told an officer that the scanner they used to check ID cards was broken, and then later told the officer that the scanner had been used to check the identification of the underage attendees.

Attorney Jim Merberg, who represented The Muse at the hearing, said that the establishment was committed to keeping underage attendees out of The Muse and was doing everything that it could to avoid selling alcohol to minors.

“We are on the same side with the licensing authority. We are on the same side with the police department. We are sharing the same concerns about underage people being in the facility,” Merberg said.

He added that the fake IDs used by many teenagers are so sophisticated that it is almost impossible to differentiate them from valid IDs.

“The quality of the counterfiet identification doucments that are being used and scanned by equipment which we have are so sophisticated that, in fact, even police officers can’t necessarily understand whether or not they’re counterfeited,” Merberg said. “To understand the gravity of the difficulty in trying to ferret out people who are under 21, you need to have some understanding of the quality of the IDs that are being used.”

A police officer following up on the underage drinking incidents obtained a fake ID from one of the attendees and wrote that “when observing the fake ID it showed clear signs that it was a fake ID due to the lamination of the ID peeling off, the ID was not even, and the writing was almost blurry. At first glance of the ID it would show too many signs of being a fake ID. Seeing this ID shows me that the Muse establishment is either not training their security on how to properly identify fake IDs or they are clearly picking and choosing what IDs they want to take.”

At least two of the dates listed in the police reports are associated with concerts scheduled as part of The Muse’s “Summer Series.” Organized by Nantucket Crisps founder Hayden Arnot, the son of TV personality and author Bob Arnot, The Muse’s Summer Series is produced by the Nantucket Music Foundation, which says it is “dedicated to bringing the island together through live music.”

Merberg said that The Muse was not attempting to avoid responsibility, but that the violations were unintentional and that even a five-day suspension would be “economically crippling” for The Muse.

 “This was not deliberate violations,” Merberg said. “This is a problem for establishments that attract people who like music.”

Arnot and The Muse’s owner, Michael O’Reilly, are both named in the police reports stemming from the incidents, and Arnot is listed as responsible for organizing the relevant concerts.

Select Board member Jill Vieth suggested that the existence of the summer series made such violations more likely.

“It was a popular band for the kids,” Vieth said.

O’Reilly echoed his attorney in his statement.

“This is not the business we want to be in with minors,” O'Reilly said, adding that the Muse is making changes to improve security.

The Nantucket Music Foundation and the Summer Series are fiscally sponsored by Fairwinds, Nantucket’s behavioral health center. Fiscal sponsorship allows a nonprofit to accept and hold tax-deductible charitable donations on behalf of another organization and then redistribute those funds to the organization.

This summer has been a publicity whirlwind for The Muse. On one side, a number of major news outlets have hailed the summer series, publishing glowing profiles of The Muse and the Nantucket Music Foundation. On the other side, the Muse is being sued for $1 million in damages stemming from a violent brawl involving two bouncers in 2023. The bouncers were found not guilty in a criminal trial last year.

Now, the Muse will also have to contend with a temporary suspension of its liquor license as well.