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New Bedford police shut down a restaurant and bar in the North End on Monday, hours after a 19-year-old man appeared in Third District Court to face charges that he shot and killed a man and wounded two women inside the place early on Saturday morning.
Police said the Morna Lounge & Grill at Acushnet Avenue near the corner of Earle Street — where officers have been called many times for reports of unruly crowds, serving after business hours, and violence inside and just outside the restaurant — would be shut down indefinitely.
In a release posted late Monday afternoon, Police Chief Paul Oliveira cited his authority under state law to order the owner, Mateus Jose Barbosa, to “immediately close the business on an emergency basis ‘in the interest of public safety.’”
The release said the police hand-delivered the shutdown order in a letter to Barbosa, who according to business records is based in East Bridgewater. Oliveira cited a history of trouble at the restaurant and the Saturday shootings.
A call placed to a number listed for Barbosa in a New Bedford Licensing Board document was not returned.
The Bristol County District Attorney’s Office, heading the homicide investigation also involving New Bedford and State Police, reported that Danielson Varela of New Bedford was arrested Sunday night and charged in the shootings that took place at about 1 a.m. Saturday inside 1621 Acushnet Avenue.
The DA’s office identified the man killed as 27-year-old Cristiano Macedo of New Bedford. The names of the injured women have not been released.
Macedo was pronounced dead at St. Luke’s Hospital, where the women were treated for their injuries.
Third District Court records show that Varela appeared before Judge Sabine Coyne on Monday, charged with first degree murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, carrying a loaded firearm and two counts of assault and battery with a firearm.
Varela was being held without bail at the Bristol County Jail and House of Correction in North Dartmouth pending a probable cause hearing scheduled on Feb. 10, court records show.
According to court records, he was charged in two cases last year: malicious destruction of property at a home in the South End, and firing a gun outside a convenience store on Brock Avenue. Both cases were dismissed.
The Morna Lounge opened in the middle of the pandemic by two brothers hoping to offer a place for Cape Verdean food and music. Trouble in and around the lounge started months after it opened in March 2021, according to the police statement and records of the New Bedford Licensing Board.
The police statement said there was a shooting outside the bar in July 2024, and a fatal shooting behind the business in August last year. In March 2022, someone was stabbed inside, and the police temporarily seized the liquor license, according to minutes of New Bedford Licensing Board meetings.
These events, according to the police statement, “have raised significant concerns about the ability of the Morna Lounge’s management and staff to maintain a safe and secure environment for patrons and neighbors.”
According to minutes of a board meeting on Dec. 18, 2023, police were called to the place on Nov. 5, 2023, about 1 a.m. for reports of a man collapsed on the sidewalk and a crowd outside.
Barbosa showed the board documentation from the hospital demonstrating that the man had a medical condition that caused a seizure, and that he had not been drinking. Still, the medical emergency drew a crowd, he said.
The police reported that while the restaurant was closed, people who had been patrons did not want to leave the area. One man strayed into the middle of Acushnet Avenue, yelling and blocking cars. Police handcuffed him, and later found he had an outstanding arrest warrant.
Barbosa told the board he had hired more security and installed better lighting.
Police Officer George Coto told the board he’d seen improvements, “but it is a tough area of the city at closing time, partly due to the number of establishments in a small area letting out at the same time, and the crowds seem to mix at the end of the night with the bar across the street.”
Coto said Barbosa “works with the officers and has a good relationship with them,” the meeting minutes said.
Nonetheless, the police in the spring of 2022 seized the liquor license after someone was stabbed inside on March 27, according to the minutes of a meeting held on April 6.
At that point, the restaurant liquor license was on one-year probation that started on Dec. 22, 2021, the minutes said. The board told Barbosa in the April session that he had failed to heed earlier warnings about illegal activity, and warning of further action to curtail business hours, or take action “to modify, suspend, revoke, or cancel your license.”
It’s not clear if other action was taken at that time.
In January 2022, the board meeting included a review of police reports of incidents at the establishment, but apparently no appearance by the owner or other testimony.
The minutes say the board was reviewing reports of fights outside the lounge on three occasions in December 2021, and a fourth disturbance in December involving an apparently drunk person at about 2 a.m.
Barbosa was called before the board in December 2021, after two people were spotted in a car idling in a parking lot on Oct. 24 near the restaurant shortly before 3 a.m. Both had apparently been drinking, the meeting minutes say.
The driver said she was a Morna bartender, and the passenger was a year shy of the legal drinking age.
Records show that Barbosa was first called before the board only months after the place opened, on July 20, 2021.
According to minutes of the meeting, the board told him that “over the past 60 days there have been incidents of multiple fights including one in which a firearm was recovered as well as an incident in which patrons were observed leaving your premises with drinks in their hands at 3:54 a.m.”
The minutes show that Barbosa claimed a rival business owner across the street was calling the police, trying to get his place closed, but Board Chairman Steven A. Beauregard was having none of it.
“I don’t want to hear the nonsense,” Beauregard said, telling Barbosa that
“…we have concrete information in front of us … of being open after hours … fights taking place … calls for service to your establishment … where people are saying that there’s 20 people or 60 people in your place … we’re talking about what’s in front of us now,” the meeting minutes reported.
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org
