A hearing on the terms of a settlement agreement between the town of Blue Hill and local restaurant and beer garden Blaze over unpermitted construction has been postponed.
The town has considered legal action against what it says are land use violations at the downtown restaurant, which owner Matt Haskell says were previously approved by Blue Hill’s then-code enforcement officer and state regulators.
Blaze serves a full menu, pizza and beer on Main Street and hosts live music. Haskell has a long history as a restaurateur in the region, including opening other Blaze locations in Bangor and Bar Harbor.
The Blue Hill dispute is among several recent significant developments for his businesses, including his purchase of Cellardoor Winery in Lincolnville this past spring and legal wrangling over roughly half a million dollars in business and personal debts, which he attributed to a 2023 fire at a former Camden Blaze location.
Blue Hill postponed the hearing after it became clear this weekend that the two parties weren’t in agreement, according to a Monday notice from the select board. Blaze had posted on Facebook the day before asking supporters to attend and speak in favor of keeping the business in town; neighbors previously complained about noise from live music events, which Haskell suggested contributed to the town’s scrutiny.
“This is not a forum to discuss the future of the town’s village area, the merits of a downtown business, or any topic beyond the settlement terms,” select board members wrote about the hearing in the Monday notice, adding that consideration of a settlement agreement in place of legal action was tabled until “a future date.”
Additions at the restaurant property between 2021 and 2025 included a 160-square-foot structure housing a pizza oven and outdoor kitchen, an 11-by-17 foot outdoor bar, a 4-by-10 foot commercial meat smoker and a 14-by-18 foot stage with a roof and three walls, according to a draft of the proposed agreement.
Those were all built without permits because the town’s then-code enforcement officer said the projects didn’t need them, according to Haskell, who has also said he worked with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
In October 2025, the select board renewed the restaurant’s liquor license and granted a special amusement permit on the condition that Blaze get permits for those structures by the end of March, which it did not do, according to the town.
Blaze counters that the pizza oven, outdoor kitchen and bar were authorized by the then-code enforcement officer. The smoker is not a structure and the stage is a temporary structure on an already impervious area, Haskell argues, and thus don’t require permits.
In July, the town sent a notice about various violations of Blue Hill’s ordinances concerning shoreland zoning, floodplain management, commercial site plan and notice of intent to alter or construct buildings, with a July 20 compliance deadline that wasn’t met.
The draft agreement would have required the restaurant to provide additional documentation by Sept. 1 about numerous property details and submit a plan to get into compliance. Blaze also would have been responsible for the town’s attorney fees and a penalty between $5,000 and $15,000.
On Sunday, Haskell posted on the business’ Facebook page asking for support at the now-postponed hearing. He described the situation as a “mountain made out of a molehill” that began with noise complaints and was pursued by a few select board members.
After a recent apparently positive meeting between the two parties’ attorneys, the town returned with a stricter settlement offer than he expected, he said.
“We want to be in downtown Blue Hill, we want to be there for a very very long time, but if this treatment persists and this disagreement after over 5 years of silence [isn’t] amicably resolved we may just [in fact] decide to move out of downtown Blue Hill which would be a true shame,” the Facebook statement read, saying the restaurant brings culture, diversity, music, arts, jobs, community gathering space and more to a once-empty commercial property downtown.
Haskell said Monday that the meeting was postponed “as we finish working together for the better of Blue Hill and keeping our 5.5 year old beer garden in place.” He declined further comment.
“You’ve been very vocal to the town in the past 24 hours and we are looking forward to working out an amicable solution for everyone,” the restaurant wrote in a social media update addressed to its supporters.
