Bar Harbor Takes a Look at Noise, Music, and Community Impact

Carrie Jones

Feb 04, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by The Witham Family Hotels Charitable Fund.

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BAR HARBOR—It’s a draft. Nothing is solid, and the public will have a time to weigh in, Bar Harbor Town Manager James Smith stressed, February 3, as he introduced a “pure draft” of a potential new special amusement ordinance.

That ordinance regulates music in places where liquor is served.

The regulation of noise and hours of activity are important to discuss and to see if the council supports the proposed changes, Smith said.

Big goals in the current draft would be to give the town councilors the ability to add conditions to a permit, Town Clerk Liz Graves explained, and to apply a solid basis for a conditional approval or denial of a permit.

The current draft broadens the definition of the activities to include things beyond music like trivia, games, pool tables, arcade games, and video games.

“That’s a big change,” Graves said.

Another goal would be to have the applications come in to the council as groups, twice a year.

It also adds in an option for fire and safety inspections.

To get municipal approval on a state liquor license, the business can’t have any outstanding accounts with the town, so along that same logic, she said, any outstanding notice of violation from the code enforcement officer would flag the application for a special amusement permit.

Other potential changes involve a second public hearing for applications.

The current process is laid out in the Special Amusement Ordinance of the Bar Harbor Town Code which is Chapter 14 of the town code.

“There’s this balance of folks coming out in the community,” Town Council Chair Val Peacock said. “I like the idea of the council being able to propose—based on what we’re hearing from the folks in the room about what the concerns are—propose some solutions within that space, but I don’t really want to have this sort of back and forth negotiation with the crowd in the room at the expense of the applicant in the middle of that.”

Sometimes, she said there are big crowds who get worked up and it’s important to listen, and it’s important to determine how to create changes to applications without micromanaging and figuring out how much back and forth is allowed.

Vice Chair Maya Caines found the checklist helpful. She would encourage residents to come and look at the checklists as well. She said the council often hears from people worries about hours of operation or how frequently events could occur.

Peacock also wondered if there was another approach to it, such as different zones of town allowing different permissions.

Graves said there are currently approximately two dozen special amusement permits in Bar Harbor. As of July 15, there had been 19 permits that went before the council. At that time, two had been denied: Siam Orchid and The Links Pub.

Bo Jennings applauded some of the work done and said he’d look to it being a quarterly process rather than the current monthly process or the twice a year process.

He also said that going by the number of people who show up to a meeting about denying a permit wasn’t the way to lead a town. “What if everything they said wasn’t accurate?”

“A lot of times we’re talking about feelings. ‘I think it’s too loud,’ or ‘that disturbs my version of peace,’” he said. “Look at Kebo, for example, when that permit was denied. They’ve had brass bands playing outside since 1888 out there but one guitarist with a microphone was too much.”

He advocated for consistency as well as clear definitions for residents and musicians and applauded the compromising aspects of the draft proposed changes.

The discussion came after a meeting that occurred the same night where Terramore Outdoor Resort received approval for indoor amplified music. It’s expected to be used at three events in 2026. A previous application for outdoor amplified music had been denied this fall.

The application brought out three neighbors who did not support the permit. One speaker who didn’t identify herself said that the application process is flawed. She said it shouldn’t be neighbors’ burdens to prove that noise is too loud. She didn’t feel like it respects community members when permits are issued without the town going to the sites and testing the sound in the area.

Another neighbor said she can often hear music from Atlantic Brewery, which, she said, is about .75 miles away. She said that residents’ voices are often getting pushed aside, but would appreciate outreach from businesses about when the events might occur.

Another neighbor said her concerns are focused on protecting the quality of life and environment in the Town Hill area and that they can hear the music from the brewery as well.

The council voted 6-1 in favor. Councilor Randell Sprague voted against.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

To Watch The Meeting/Workshop

Meeting Agenda

Workshop Agenda

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