City officials said Wednesday they had suspended the entertainment license for Icon, a Boston nightclub, after a woman suffered a medical emergency there over the weekend and later died.
The city’s licensing board is expected to hold a hearing on the future of Icon’s liquor license “in the coming weeks,” according to a statement from the mayor’s office.
Police arrived at the Warrenton Street venue, in the Theater District, just before 12:30 a.m. on Sunday and found a person lying on the dance floor, unresponsive and without a pulse, according to an incident report. Family members on social media identified the woman as Anastaiya Colon and said she had been celebrating her sister’s birthday when she collapsed.
Emergency medical personnel performed chest compressions and took Colon to Tufts Medical Center, according to the report. Family members said Tuesday that she had died.
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“Any loss of life in our community is a horrible tragedy and our condolences go out to the family and loved ones,” Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement Wednesday.
Family members have accused the nightclub of negligence, alleging that, once alerted to the medical emergency, Icon staff failed immediately to call 911, only stopped the dance music for a few minutes, and did not clear the way for emergency personnel once they arrived.
“Their negligence and incompetence to control and clear a crowd for professionals ensured it was too late to save her,” Bonnell Stackhouse, Colon’s former partner, alleged in a social media post.
Boston police detectives are investigating the incident, according to Officer Mark Marron, a department spokesperson. A spokesperson for the Suffolk district attorney’s office said Wednesday morning that there are “no indications of criminality.”
In a statement to the Globe on Wednesday, the club said its staff had acted appropriately.
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Club management said it conducted interviews with employees and reviewed security footage that showed CPR was administered “within a minute” of staff being notified of the medical emergency.
EMS was contacted within two minutes, and Boston police arrived within six minutes, the club said.
“We hope the family finds some comfort knowing that Boston Police, Boston EMS, and the Club Staff worked diligently and efficiently in responding to this unfortunate situation,” clubmanagement said.
According to the police report, however, the first officers to arrive on the scene were on a routine patrol outside the nightclub when they were flagged down by one of Colon’s friends.
Police also said in the report that the large crowd inside the club did not comply with orders to give space to emergency medical personnel, forcing them to shut down the club and order the patrons to leave.
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Icon had planned to hold a New Year’s Eve event, headlined by DJs JayRoc and Roniflee, according to its social mediaaccounts. It was unclear Wednesday whether that event would take place.
Colon, known as “Nena,” leaves behind two children, one aged 9 and the other 6 months old, according to a fund-raiser in her name.
Anastaiya Colon collapsed Sunday at Icon, a nightclub in Boston’s Theater District, and later died.GoFundMe
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at camilo.fonseca@globe.com. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.
President Trump holds up an executive order to limit mail-in voting as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick looks on in the White House’s Oval Office in March.
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President Trump’s executive order to limit voting by mail has hit a legal hurdle.
On Thursday, a Boston-based judge blocked parts of the order that, at least so far, has not directly affected mail-in voting for this year’s midterm primary elections.
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The legal fight, however, is likely to continue. The order pushes the boundaries of Trump’s authority under the Constitution, which gives state legislatures and Congress — not the U.S. president — the power to set the rules for federal elections.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the new ruling by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, a nominee of former President Barack Obama, as a separate appeal of an earlier ruling by another federal judge moves forward in a similar set of lawsuits based in Washington, D.C.
Among other directives, Trump’s order from March calls for the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Service to create lists of adult U.S. citizens or eligible voters in each state. It also calls for USPS, which is independent of a president’s administration, to deliver mail-in ballots only to people on those lists.
In response, USPS has proposed using information from state election officials to create voter lists. Postmaster General David Steiner told lawmakers Wednesday that under the proposal, the Postal Service would not deliver the mail ballots of any states that refuse to turn over their absentee voter lists to the federal government.
For the D.C.-based cases, the judge found in late May that it was too early for an emergency ruling that would block directives that the Trump administration has yet to carry out. Democrats are appealing that judge’s ruling to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia.
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Editor’s note: USPS is a financial supporter of NPR.
