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| |  | Business owners, like those of Rockmount Ranch Wear at 1626 Wazee St., say a vast majority of their customer base is made up of car-commuters. They argue the city’s efforts to reduce Denver’s reliance on automobiles is having a negative impact on their livelihoods. (Adrian González / City Cast Denver) |
| Downtown Traffic Changes Bring Business Blowback (Again) | As the demand for more walkable neighborhoods and higher density housing grows louder from street safety and multimodality activists, the car vs. transit debate remains at a fever pitch. Traffic safety advocates say the work so far has made — and will continue to make — Denver’s streets safer. Critics say it’s not that simple. [Denver Post 🔒] | - Local business owners speak out: Steve Weil, president and third-generation member of his family to run the iconic 80-year-old Rockmount Ranch Wear on Wazee Street, recently co-authored a guest column in The Denver Post to call out the city’s efforts to “push people out of their cars” by “making driving increasingly difficult.” [Denver Post 🔒]
| | | | - The facts: The 500-plus projects currently underway through the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure aim to widen sidewalks, narrow street lanes, reduce speeds, adjust traffic signals, and install and improve pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure across the city. All in, the projects are expected to total nearly $1 billion. [Denver Post 🔒]
- What’s the mayor saying? In response to the column from Weil, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office told us:
“The writers of this piece are correct. An anti-car approach would be bad for downtown, just as an anti-bike, anti-pedestrian, and anti-bus approach would be. … The city has invested significantly in downtown, not only for where we are today but for where we want to be in 20 years.” - What the numbers tell us: We asked the city’s finance department to share tax revenue data for RiNo, Cherry Creek, and downtown Denver Business Improvement Districts as far back as available. What we found is that downtown’s sales tax revenue has increased notably from 2024 to 2025. That data point is especially interesting compared to the nearly stagnant numbers for the same period of time in RiNo and Cherry Creek, perhaps due to the mayor’s downtown revitalization efforts last year. [9News]
| |  | Sales tax revenue for RiNo, Cherry Creek, and downtown Denver BIDs from 2019 to 2025 based on data provided by the City of Denver’s Department of Finance. (City Cast Denver) |
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| | | Simply Eloped helps couples ditch the pressure and celebrate your love story on your terms. We’ve planned over 14,000 personalized elopements and vow renewals in gorgeous locations nationwide. Is yours next? |
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| What Denver's Talking About |
|  | The cliff divers, pirates, and puppeteers of Casa Bonita are asking for better wages and safety assurances. (Peyton Garcia / City Cast Denver) |
| 🌮 Brooke Shields Backs Up Casa Bonita Union Members | The A-list Hollywood actress and author surprised Pink Palace management when she showed up to hand-deliver a letter from members of the Casa Bonita United union recently. (Shields is the president of the national Actors’ Equity Association.) The restaurant’s entertainment employees have been stuck at the bargaining table with management over workplace safety and wages for nearly a year. [Denverite] | | 🧑⚖️ Dean Shot By Student Will Take DPS to Court | A lawsuit filed against Denver Public Schools by a dean who was shot by an East High School student in 2023 will proceed in court, a judge has ruled. The student had a record of bringing firearms to school, and the lawsuit alleges that the district’s safety policies were too lax. In his ruling, the judge said he believes DPS displayed a “shocking disregard” for staff and student wellbeing and “knowingly opened the door for a mass shooting.” [Chalkbeat] | - What the ruling means: DPS hasn’t been found guilty of anything. The ruling was in response to the district’s attempts to have the lawsuit dismissed. The lawsuit will now move forward.
| | 💸 Is Reforming the Tipped Minimum Wage the Answer to Restaurants’ Money Woes? | From rising food prices to high rents to labor costs, running a restaurant in Denver isn’t cheap. A report on the state of the industry released a few months ago pointed toward the city’s rising minimum wage as a major burden for hospitality businesses — so much so that Denver City Council may even take up the issue in the coming months. But Lindsay Dalton, owner of the Weathervane Cafe, is speaking out, and she says it’s unfair to put the burden of operating costs solely on employees like hers, Denver’s tipped minimum wage workers. [City Cast Denver 🎧] | | | 🍿 88 Drive-In Opens for Another Season | Local cinephiles were devastated when the Denver metro’s last-standing drive-in movie theater announced it would close for good in 2023 — but that never happened. Despite the uncertainty of its future over the last three years, 88 Drive-In Theatre is welcoming back viewers for not only another season of movies under the stars, but its 50th anniversary. [9News] | - Back in business for good? The future of the theater remains unclear. Back in 2023, the original owners sold the land to new owners who submitted a rezoning proposal to Commerce City Council with tentative plans for a multi-tenant warehouse. It’s unclear where that plan stands now.
| | 💡 Xcel Energy Says Data Centers Should ‘Pay Their Own Way’ | In a proposal filed with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission last week, Xcel Energy suggested a brand-new rate class for data centers in order to protect residential and small business customers from getting stuck footing the bill in rate increases. The proposal also included a “clean transition” provision to incentivize data centers to invest in carbon-free technologies. [CO Sun] | - The data center debate: The demand for data centers is quickly starting to outpace supply thanks to the AI boom, and lawmakers are divided on how to handle it.
- What is the Colorado Public Utilities Commission? The PUC will evaluate Xcel’s proposal over the next few months, and ultimately get the final say. So who makes up this state entity and what else are they responsible for?
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A lunch recommendation: Get in at Noodle Express while you can — after just barely avoiding an untimely demise in 2022, the hidden Denver gem turned dining darling has announced it will close for good at the end of May 😢 |
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