A 26-year-old man named Reginald Smith was arrested for making a bomb threat at Morgan Wallen‘s downtown Nashville bar on Wednesday night (April 23), according to Nashville news station WKRN.
Police were called to the singer’s Broadway hot spot, This Bar, after security was given a note that was written on a receipt.
“I have a bomb!! Don’t be a hero SYBAU,” the note read.
According to Urban Dictionary, “SYBAU” could mean “shut your b–ch a– up,” and can be used to “start a fight” on some internet forums.
Officers searched the bar and were unable to substantiate any real bomb threat, but they did link the note to Smith, who had since departed Wallen’s bar and was at another establishment on Nashville’s Lower Broadway.
He told police that he “wrote the note as a joke and didn’t mean anything by it,” according to WKRN.
Smith was arrested and charged with felony false reporting of an emergency. His bond was set at $15,000. WKRN reports that the incident took three police officers off their patrol duties to handle the case, and endangered customers and staff at This Bar.
Read More: See Photos of The Sign for Morgan Wallen’s This Bar
This Bar opened in summer 2024. The venue takes its name from Wallen’s song “This Bar.”
Before opening, This Bar faced some extra red tape for its 20-foot sign, which was planned to hang outside the building and feature Wallen’s name. Nashville’s Metro Council originally voted to reject the sign’s construction, with one council member saying the decision came because of some of the more controversial points in Wallen’s up-and-down legal and personal troubles.
“I don’t want to see a billboard up with the name of a person who’s throwing chairs off of balconies and who is saying racial slurs,” at-large Council member Delishia Porterfield stated (quote via The Tennessean).
Wallen was arrested after he threw a chair off the roof of Chiefs — a bar owned by Eric Church. The singer pled guilty to two misdemeanors in connection with that incident last December and avoided jail time in favor of a seven-day sentence in an alcohol education center and a year of probation.
Later that same month, Wallen officially got the go-ahead from Metro Council to install the sign outside the building housing This Bar.