Are you Westword‘s new pot critic?

Is this the most attention you’ve ever gotten?” asked the national reporter. Westword got bomb threats when we broke the news about University of Colorado coach Bill McCartney’s daughter being pregnant by dying quarterback Sal Aunese, a story that’s gotten a second life on ESPN now that their son is…

Tilted Kilt goes for a liquor license

The Tilted Kilt has been called a Celtic Hooters — a label that its Arizona-based owners don’t appreciate, we hear. They prefer “The Best Looking Sports Pub You’ve Ever Seen,” the slogan on the web site. A sports pub with waitresses who wear naughty school-girl skirts. There are already 22…

Wake-Up Call: Hold your horses!

Twenty-five years ago, the Department of Defense took over 235,000 acres of ranchland in southeastern Colorado — the largest condemnation of private property in the country. And the Army’s not done yet. Six years ago, word surfaced that the feds would try to add another 400,000 acres to the Pinon…

Kevin Taylor goes ahead with catering; steaks on back burner

Last March, chef/restaurateur Kevin Taylor announced that in September 2009, he would be opening Kevin Taylor Steak in the aloft Hotel at Arista in Broomfield. It would be his seventh restaurant (if you count the one in Central City’s Teller House, which is only open in the summer), one that…

Wake-Up Call: Mile High City going to pot

Yesterday, Westword’s quest for a medical-marijuana critic made the New York Times, after already being featured in the Wall Street Journal, MSN and CNBC. My e-mail box overflowed and my phone rang off the hook. It’s funny how the national media has jumped all over this. “Is this the most…

Wake-Up Call: Steer clear of this DMV office!

I’ve always had good luck at the Division of Motor Vehicles office at 2736 Welton Street. Sure, the tiny parking lot is a nightmare, but the DMV employees are friendly, if not always fast — and you can always take a quick stroll around Five Points if there’s a wait…

Wake-Up Call: The joy of text?

President Barack Obama just signed an executive order banning federal workers from text-messaging when they are driving government cars, or driving their own cars on government business, or using their on government phones while driving their own cars on personal business. The ban was announced at a transportation department meeting…

Mazzio exits from Icehouse Tavern

James Mazzio poured his heart and soul — and a lot of elbow grease — into Icehouse Tavern, the comfort food restaurant at 1801 Wynkoop Street that took the place of Via and opened in July, after Mazzio had done much of the renovation work himself. “I redid the deck,…

Wake-Up Call: A dog ate my Crocs!

For years, I fought the urge to buy a pair of Crocs, that homegrown phenomenon that has millions of people shuffling around the planet in what look like wading pools. It wasn’t the shoes’ appearance that bothered me, or the stories of people getting their Crocs stuck in escalators, or…

A square deal to save Pinon Canyon

I may have lost my camera, some of my hide and a piece of my heart in Piñon Canyon, but I also brought some of the land home with me — and not just the dirt in my boots and the cactus spines in my skin. I’ve signed up to…

Johnson’s Corner keeps on trucking

Today is Trucker Appreciation Day at Johnson’s Corner. “Being a truck driver is often a thankless job,” Chauncey Taylor, owner of the 56-year-old roadhouse off I-25 just north of the Berthoud exit, told the Coloradoan.”We want to show our appreciation for and thank truck drivers — after all, it is…

Wake-Up Call: There is no Easter Bunny!

Pat Schroeder was always quick with a quip when she represented Denver in Congress for 24 years, from 1972-1996, whether she was talking one-on-one with a reporter or treating the masses to her opinion of the “Teflon presidency” of Ronald Reagan. In China with members of the House Armed Services…

Wake-Up Call: Place your bets!

Ameristar is betting on Black Hawk. Today, the company will cut the ribbon on its 33-story, 500-plus room hotel that towers over the old mining/new gaming town — a hotel that boasts not just a renovated casino, but luxury suites, a spa and the “only rooftop pool” in Black Hawk…

Wake-Up Call: Meow!

When asked about the catfight over his run for the U.S. Senate nomination, Andrew Romanoff usually repeats some variation on this line, first offered up at his Pueblo campaign announcement two weeks ago: “Democrats are a lot like cats. When you hear them making a lot of noise, it sounds…

Wake-Up Call: What’s cooking? Conspiracies

According to the FBI affidavit and indictment unsealed yesterday, twice this summer Najibullah Zazi checked into an unnamed Aurora hotel that had a kitchen, where he attempted to cook up a bomb with items he’d bought from a nearby beauty-supply house. To keep this country safe from terrorists (and other…

Wake-Up Call: On your toes, Tom

Owing to an aunt who taught ballroom dancing classes, I know more than I should about that world. And even so, I was amazed — slack-jawed, even — when Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader whose tactics earned him the nickname “The Hammer,” showed up as a contestant on…

Wake-Up Call: Be afraid, Joe Rogan. Be very afraid!

When we heard that Joe Rogan, the host of Fear Factor, had moved to town, we immediately started working on our list of the Ten Most Frightening Things About Life in Denver. The fact that a DIA shuttle driver could be part of an international terrorist conspiracy came in at…

Wake-Up Call: Just Like Us is a story of America… and Denver

Political journalist Helen Thorpe had a problem when she moved to Denver: She came here to marry John Hickenlooper, an entrepreneur who soon decided to plunge into politics and was elected mayor of Denver. What does a top reporter married to the town’s top politician write about? The underdogs, the…

Tonight: Sample Uptown at the Uptown Sampler

The 22nd Annual Uptown Sampler runs tonight from 5-8:30 p.m., and there’s no better way to get a taste of how this neighborhood has finally grown into a real restaurant row. It was 25 years ago that Cliff Young opened his eponymous restaurant at 700 East 17th Avenue, in a…

Wake-Up Call: Trouble’s brewing at the Beauvallon

The back of the Beauvallon, Craig Nassi’s monumental mess, is now wrapped in scaffolding and fabric, like a Christo construction looming over the Golden Triangle. But the art of this deal isn’t pretty. The building is in receivership, and the last three retail tenants — who dared to complain about…