Apparently the real hang-up behind Monday’s canceled Guns N’ Roses show at the Cumberland County Civic Center?

Fire inspectors told band representatives they couldn’t drink on stage.

In his weekly newsletter Thursday, Maine Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland said inspectors had been there to oversee pyrotechnics and ran into “a couple issues that were quickly resolved.”

The bigger sticking point: Representatives of Guns N’ Roses shared the fact that they “wanted to drink beer, wine and Jagermeister while performing,” McCausland wrote.

That’s against Maine law.

“It’s been on the books for years,” said Jeff Austin, supervisor of liquor licensing and inspection for the Department of Public Safety. He talked with fire marshals Monday afternoon while they were at the civic center to read them the chapter of the law.

Performers can’t drink on stage, and employees at establishments with liquor licenses can’t drink on the job, he said. Austin has issued three or four administrative violations for that this year.

In order to enforce the law, “Somebody has to be there with the authority to write it up,” or pass on the referral, Austin said. In this case, it was the fire marshals who did that.

A press release issued the day the concert was canceled failed to offer a specific reason for the pullout. However, a band spokesperson was quoted in the release as blaming local fire marshals for “making it impossible for the band to perform their show to the usual high standards that their fans deserve.”

The spokesperson also said the rules and regulations should not apply to the civic center and that authorities had not put the same restrictions on other performers at that venue.

– Kathryn Skelton