Opinion & Commentary

Squeaky Bean opened a year ago this weekend at 3301 Tejon Street, and against all odds in the twelve months since, this little restaurant with the much littler kitchen has managed to turn out big meals and attract big crowds. There should be as big crowd today, when the Squeaky…

Erik Osborn has been convicted twice of felony theft — but the developer won’t be going to the Big House. Yesterday, Denver District Judge Robert McGahey sentenced Osborn to ten years of community corrections for diverting investor funds meant for 1800 Glenarm Place. Those ten years will follow the ten…

Without the late Karle Seydel, Denver’s major-league ballpark wouldn’t have landed where Coors Field is today. There were three sites considered — one on land owned by Phil Anschutz, who had a lot more clout than Seydel, an urban planner who was devoting himself to the area north of LoDo…

Scottie Ewing has had quite the career. While still a pro skier, he became an entrepreneur, starting a number of businesses that promoted partying… and prostitution. I first encountered him when he’d opened a swingers’ club, the Sindicate, in a very unlikely spot — the arts district on Navajo Street…

For someone who talks a lot — to Meet the Press Sunday, to CNN yesterday — Pennsylvania representative Joe Sestak doesn’t say a lot. Especially when he’s pressed for specifics about who at the White House offered him a job if he skipped the Pennsylvania Senate primary, where he trounced…

Even before it opened last fall, we had our doubts about the SportsBook. For starters, a slew of upscale sports bars were suddenly springing up in LoDo, giving this spot plenty of competition. And then there were the servers — dressed as sexy librarians. Well, you can judge this book…

Governor Bill Ritter will sign a slew of bills this week — the deadline for action on all legislation coming out of this past session is June 11 — but he put HB 1364 on a fast track, Vetoing the bill Friday afternoon. He did the right thing. As the…

John Hickenlooper revealed an updated campaign website yesterday that promises to keep things “positive.” We’ll see how long that lasts with both the Democrats and Republicans holding their state assemblies this weekend, just as a new Public Policy Polling survey shows that Hickenlooper has lost his early lead and is…

It’s time to expand the discussion of the bill that would continue this state’s Sex Offender Management Board beyond state senator Joyce Foster — who certainly should have revealed that the prime motivator behind her amendment of the measure was her own brother-in-law, a convicted sex offender — and Greig…

I headed up to the 2000 block of Larimer Street last night — an area dubbed “NoDo” two decades ago, not just because the map put it right above LoDo, but because of its distinct lack of funds compared to its more prosperous neighbor. And there I raised a glass…

The controversy continues to grow over last-minute changes in HB 1364. The measure extends the life of the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board for five years, but removes the words “no known cure” — as originally presented, the measure included those words and charged the board to study whether they…

Concern over the legislature’s last-second changes to the bill that continues the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board is growing, with an editorial in the Denver Post on Saturday and Peter Boyles continuing to beat the drum on KHOW this morning. Yes, the program that’s the target of this last-second change,…

Even as legislators were spinning their last-second vote that will let sex offenders choose their own treatment, and also removed the words “no known cure” when describing their crimes, Senior U.S. District Judge John Kane was chastising a clearly not-cured child-porn addict. Two years ago, Kane had given Ralph Rausch,…

What’s the future for news? Is there a future for news? Those questions, and more, are all up for discussion tonight when Channel 12 presents “Whose News? How Public Media Can Save Our Lives” with journalist Frank Sesno, currently the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at…

The Gulf of Mexico is a day’s drive away, but Colorado’s still gotten slimed by the spill. As head of the Department of the Interior, which badly underestimated the environmental threat posed by the Deepwater Horizon disaster, former senator Ken Salazar has found his formerly squeaky-clean reputation marred by a…

Last night, with less than a day to go in this legislative session and plenty of work still to be done, the House reluctantly accepted the amendments the Senate had made to HB 1284 and passed the bill (by a 46 to 19 vote) that will regulate the operation of…

By statute, this session of the Colorado Legislature must end on May 12. Lawmakers have a lot of work to do before then. The two hottest measures of this legislative session — medical marijuana regulations and the education reform bill — will both hit the House today. In the case…

Oh, brother! Jim and the late Angelo Karagas bought an old saloon at 2376 15th Street more than forty years ago, transforming it into My Brother’s Bar, an institution so beloved in Denver that it needs no sign. But now, another Brothers is entering the market: Brothers Bar & Grill…

Chris Romer’s “long, strange trip” is almost over. The state senator who last fall decided to take on the task of shepherding legislation through the Statehouse that defines and regulates this state’s booming medical marijuana industry saw House Bill 1284 pass the Senate yesterday, 26-9, with a major bipartisan push…