Opinion & Commentary

It may be “giddyup” time for John Hickenlooper, but his announcement that he does not plan to resign as Denver mayor in order to run for Colorado governor put a major “whoa” on all the dark horses already preparing for a run at the top slot at City Hall. And…

First Atomic Cowboy started serving pizza, thanks to the addition of Fat Sully’s. Now it has fresh biscuits and sausage gravy (made fresh daily), along with other Southern breakfast comfort-food items, courtesy of the Denver Biscuit Company, which just opened inside the Bluebird District hangout at 3237 East Colfax Avenue…

Our throats were dry, our eyes were red. Blame it on pot. Specifically, on listening to four hours of pot testimony and discussion — on top of the salute to the National Western Stock Show and another hour of civic housekeeping — at last night’s Denver City Council meeting. But…

On the 1400 block of Market, the Ruth’s Chris space is still dark and the former home of Buca di Beppo is slated to become a medical marijuana dispensary — but Gaslamp got the lights on this past weekend. Gaslamp is owned by Greg Gallagher, who also owns the Front…

Despite suggestions that he hold his horses and wait to see what the Colorado Legislature does, Charlie Brown pressed on with his proposal to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries in the city of Denver, and that proposal will go to a vote of the full council tonight, after a two-hour public…

The Fort will be closed from January 11 through January 21 for a kitchen renovation — the first since the Morrison restaurant, a recreation of Bent’s Old Fort, was built out of 80,000 handmade adobe bricks back in 1962. Some of those bricks are right behind the dishwasher, which helped…

Governor Bill Ritter hosted more than thirty business leaders at the Governor’s Mansion yesterday for a roundtable discussion of one of his major priorities for 2010: job creation. But Ritter had already given job creation a major push the day before, when his official announcement that he would not run…

As the owners of 8 Rivers, their fourth restaurant, Wanda James and Scott Durrah know the food business. And as the owners of Apothecary of Colorado, the medical marijuana dispensary they opened in December at 1730 Blake Street, just two blocks from their restaurant at 1550 Blake, they know their…

In December 2008, would-be candidates — a dozen of them, by casual count — were all counting on Governor Bill Ritter appointing Denver mayor John Hickenlooper to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Ken Salazar, a move that would opened up the top job in City Hall. Ritter went with…

Scott McInnis, who’s really the frontrunner for governor now, doesn’t know his mountain ranges, and he apparently doesn’t know his Western art, either. This summer, the Republican gubernatorial candidate took a hit when his campaign website debuted with a lovely panorama of the Rockies — the Canadian Rockies, as it…

They weren’t just blowing smoke. Last night, all thirteen Denver city councilmembers agreed to send Councilman Charlie Brown’s proposal to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries in the city to a public hearing and official vote next Monday night. But not before Councilwoman Carol Boigon raised the same spectre of her unpleasant…

Its inevitable demise was long rumored, but Bump & Grind managed to hang on until the very end of 2009, when a “closed indefinitely” sign appeared on the door of 439 East 17th Avenue and this message on its voicemail: “We are closed, and quite possibly forever. Right now it’s…

Charlie Brown’s proposal to regulate the city’s medical marijuana dispensaries will be presented to the full Denver City Council at tonight’s meeting. Since the council’s Safety Committee first started considering his proposed ordinance in November, the number of sales-tax licenses issued to medical marijuana dispensaries has more than doubled, to…

State senator Chris Romer has released the latest draft of his proposal to regulate the state’s medical marijuana industry, which will be introduced after the legislation convenes on January 13. You can read the current draft of Romer’s bill here. He’s trimmed close to thirty pages from the original proposal,…

Are there no limits to the talents of Jared Polis? During his first year in Congress, the Boulder Democrat starred in a wonky reality show, demonstrated a beer bong on Comedy Central, and came out swinging on several controversial proposals. But as 2009 draws to a close, it’s time to…

My first view of Denver was from a train — the Denver Zephyr, which a group of families had boarded in Chicago one afternoon in the mid-’60s. The kids had commandeered the dome car, where we slept on the floor under the seats, and as the sun rose, we got…

In this corner, Gary Hart, the former senator who turned out to be very prescient on terrorism, stumping for Michael Bennet: “My twelve years serving Colorado in the U.S. Senate provides a unique perspective in defining an effective senator. Like most Coloradans, I take very seriously who represents us in…

The January issue of Cooking Light features Denver, “once left off the culinary map for its admittedly tired take on cowboy cuisine,” the magazine advises, but “catching up to food trends fast.” For proof, it name-checks chef Alex Seidel of Fruition, who recently purchased a farm to supply the kind…

On the Latest Word, we’ve been counting down some of Denver’s best moments over the past decade. But this city did not start 2000 with a bang. In fact, while the rest of the world threw a huge party to welcome the millennium, Denver officials — with visions of Y2K…