Since the shootings in Connecticut that left twenty elementary school students dead, there has been an unprecedented surge in Colorado gun sales. The demand is so overwhelming that the Colorado Bureau of Investigation says it needs more money for background checks. And now Democrats in the legislature are planning to…
In what may be Denver’s last protest of 2012, a flash mob is gathering this morning at the Canadian Consulate by the 16th Street Mall in support of Theresa Spence, the chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation, who has been on a hunger strike for more than twenty days. For…
In 2012, a lot more people rode their bikes in Denver and throughout the state — which led to an overall jump in the number of crashes. But a more ominous trend, perhaps, was the growing tension on the road between cars and cyclists, resulting in a steady stream of…
Pot was definitely a hot topic in Colorado in 2012 — even before voters decided to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, and that includes growing your own (six plants per person, please). And if pot is hot across the state, it’s led to particularly heated conversations on this blog…
Now that most of the dust has settled from November’s election, President Barack Obama is finally dropping the presidential hammer — “I got yer fiscal cliff right ‘ere, mother*ckers!” — and Mitt Romney has retired from politics into the private sector, working as a busboy at the Salt Lake City…
Just before the end of 2012, Nicholas Mitchell, Denver’s new independent monitor, released his first report to the public, covering discipline cases at the police and sheriff’s departments. The document from the city’s official watchdog, just the second person to hold the position, offers a glimpse into pending investigations of…
In doing research for our feature on the history of cannabis in Colorado, we came across some amazing old news stories in local papers about marijuana arrests and more. We’ll share the most memorable of them in our quasi-regular feature, Colorado Cannabis Time Capsule. Today’s item, from September 17, 1968:…
Update: Adams County District Attorney Don Quick announced this afternoon that Ezequiel Padilla-Villalobos, the 24-year-old who called 911 over the weekend, admitting he had killed a 14-year-old girl, is also facing sexual assault charges. As expected, he’s facing first-degree murder charges, too, after allegedly stabbing to death the younger sister…
Representative Rhonda Fields, an Aurora Democrat, generally sides with liberal lawmakers in Colorado. But when it comes to a possible repeal of the death penalty, she is unwavering in her opposition. Getting rid of the death penalty would be an insult to crime victims and ill-timed given recent horrific tragedies,…
In 2012, requests for emergency food assistance increased in cities across the country — and a new report shows that in Denver, the need was especially high. Over the past year, requests jumped by 56 percent in Denver, the U.S. Conference of Mayors says, and the city was unable to…
As we point out (as if we needed to) in our Year in Review issue on stands now, 2012 was a weird, wild year for Colorado. And we would know: We’ve covered it online and in 52 print issues throughout the past twelve months. Choosing the images to embody the…
Recreational marijuana is now legal in Colorado, but carrying eleven pounds of pot on a Greyhound bus with the “intent to manufacture or distribute” is not. That is the felony charge that landed 35-year-old Jason Ramirez in jail, after a routine check at a rest stop in Lamar uncovered an…
How much access should the government have to Americans’ phone calls and e-mails — and should Congress and the public know how people are being monitored? Senator Mark Udall addressed these questions of surveillance in a lengthy floor speech yesterday, calling for better privacy protections and more information on how…
Britt Chester admits that he knew it was against the law to skateboard on the 16th Street Mall, so he wasn’t surprised when officers told him to stop. What did surprise him was what came after that — including charges of interference, a ridiculous mug shot, an overnight stay in…
As of December 26, “retail marijuana stores” are officially prohibited in Douglas County. That means that six weeks after the legalization of recreational marijuana, any commercial activities involving pot are banned in DougCo. The county is the first in Colorado to enact this kind of ordinance — and it made…
‘Twas a few days before Christmas and all through the town, there was a lot of medical herb being sold — likely a few pounds. People were stocking up, patients like me — to deal with our in-laws as stoned as can be…
Skateboarding shouldn’t be a crime — but it is in certain parts of Denver. And during my recent run-in with the Denver Police Department after I was caught skateboarding on the 16th Street Mall, I learned that not only do some cops hate skateboarding, they also hate being questioned about…
Since the horrific mass shooting in Connecticut that claimed the lives of twenty children, there has been a renewed gun-control debate in Colorado — along with a record-breaking number of residents looking to buy guns. Now a Littleton business that offers gun classes says it’s seeing unprecedented interest in lessons…
So the boys in Vegas now have Your Denver Broncos as 3-1 favorites to win Super Bowl XLVII, ahead of annoying New England (7-2), the hot-hot Seahawks (6-1), and the snowball-chance-in-hell Vikings (100-1). Win ten games in a row, and even the smart money starts to take you seriously. But…
As a senior partner with a Colorado law firm, Dick Clark works with international companies looking to expand their operations here. But since the passage of Amendment 64, which legalizes small amounts of recreational marijuana, some companies are reconsidering doing business with Colorado,he says, and he expects that problem will…
The Prius was one of the great automobile success stories of the last decade. Toyota’s hybrid took off very fast — too fast, it turned out, when owners found their accelerators sticking. And yesterday, Toyota said it had reached a settlement worth over $1 billion with car owners who’d sued…
The holidays have not been so happy in Colorado Springs, where recent acts of vandalism included a car on the south end of town covered with the large, spraypainted message message “I hate black people!” The city’s graffiti-abatement team cleaned the car; the police are still looking for the culprit,…
