Wake-Up Call: Denver goes to pot today!

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…

Wake-Up Call: Chris Romer’s latest pot proposal

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,…

Wake-Up Call: Jared Polis, poet

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…

Wake-Up Call: End of the line for the Ski Train

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…

Now in the center ring: two Senate candidate supporters

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…

Cooking Light does Denver

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…

Wake-Up Call: Denver’s Y2K flop

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…

Guess where you were drinking?

Yesterday I visited Phil’s Place, the great dive at 35th and Larimer — which suddenly boasts a fancy new back bar. From the photo, several readers thought I was at Don’s Mixed Drinks — which has also undergone an unexpected upscaling that did not stop at the bathrooms, as promised…

Wake-Up Call: Knit wits on display

Visit Denver spent $50,000 creating a city-boosting window for New York City’s Times Square last Christmas season. It was unveiled on Good Morning America by holiday-sweater Mayor John Hickenlooper, who cut the ribbon and subsequently cut up with the GMA team. The display — already a historic relic, since it…

Wake-Up Call: No moratorium on dispensaries in Denver

Think the lines at the airport are long? They’re nothing compared to the lines at the Denver Treasurer’s office, where would-be dispensary operators are lining up to get their sales-tax licenses before any city ordinance might put limits on dispensaries. But the dispensaries will definitely keep coming. Although on Friday…

Wake-Up Call: Pot proposals boil over in Colorado

What’s growing faster than the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Colorado? The number of proposals to regulate them. But while it now looks like competing concepts will collide at the Colorado Statehouse when it convenes the second week in January, Denver’s keeping its steady pace toward regulation, with the…

Get your 2010 calendars now (and some green chile, too)

How do you know it’s December? Not just by the holiday lights popping up all over town. No, you know the end of the year is near because as you exit your favorite Mexican restaurant — El Tejado, Rosa Linda’s Mexican Cafe, Mexico City Lounge — you get a calendar,…

Wake-Up Call: North High gets a good grade

Give North High School extra credit for its graduation rate, which increased 12.1 percent in 2009 — compared to the overall Denver Public Schools increase of 3.2 percent, up to a sad 52.7 percent of high school students graduating on time this past year. I came down hard on Ed…

Get lit in LoDo this holiday season!

Twenty-seven businesses entered the first annual LoDo Aglow: Scenes of the Season window-decorating contest, lighting up for the holidays (and through the Stock Show, like the Denver City and County Building). And the winners, announced this week by the LoDo District, provide a very delicious reason for a trip to…

Wake-Up Call: Denver’s pot pie still half-baked

Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown has spent the last three months thinking about medical marijuana — perhaps this city’s only real growth industry — and it showed yesterday, when council’s safety committee approved his proposal for regulating dispensaries in Denver. The proposed ordinance will go to the full council on…

India House seized

“People unfamiliar with the Asian culture are often unable to comprehend how much the joy of the Asian peoples revolves around the preparation, sharing and discussion of food.” That’s from the website of India House, the upscale Indian restaurant that replaced Delhi Darbar at 1514 Blake Street. And this week,…

Wake-Up Call: Charlie Brown’s latest pot dispensary proposal

Cowboy-hatted Charlie Brown looked right at home in Teddy’s, the bar in the north Denver Holiday Inn, where the decor is Western (complete with a Willie Matthews print) and the Broncos game was playing on Sunday. But he marched resolutely past the TV and into the Cannabis Holiday Health Fair…

Alamos Verdes has the worst boss of 2009!

Alamos Verdes doesn’t have bad Mexican food, but the venerable Arvada restaurant has the “Worst Boss of 2009,” according to eBossWatch.com, which just ranked the 25 worst bosses. Coming out on top: Paul Martinez, co-owner and manager of the restaurant at 5304 Vance Street that his parents, Emma and John…

Dick’s Hickory Dock auctioned off

The former Dick’s Hickory Dock, a river-side restaurant on Highway 74 between Morrison and Evergreen, was sold at auction by Sheldon Good & Company on December 12. Dick’s, which opened back in the ’70s and snagged a Westword readers’ choice award for Best Barbecued Ribs in the Best of Denver…

Wake-Up Call: Governor Bill Ritter exhales… and talks about pot

“I was thinking I’ve got five minutes to go and no one has asked me about medical marijuana… that’s a good thing,” Governor Bill Ritter said. And then, just five minutes before the governor had to leave Monday’s legislative briefing, it came: the inevitable question about medical marijuana. No conversation…

Wake-Up Call: LoDo gets lit!

Every December, my parents would pack the family into the station wagon and head to downtown Chicago, where we’d look at the displays in the department-store windows and all the Christmas lights that glowed brighter than the tail-lights in the traffic jam around us. Downtown department stores have gone the…

Walnut Room Pizzeria has liquor-license hearing today

The Walnut Room brought new life — and cash — to NoDo, the area northeast of Coors Field. But for its next venture, it’s taking on an area that’s already ground zero for hipsters: Broadway. And at 9 a.m. today, Walnut owner John Burr will be at the Denver Department…