Opinion & Commentary

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it — and maybe inhale it, too. Before he became a state representative, rancher Wes McKinley was the foreman of the Rocky Flats grand jury, empaneled in 1989 to consider allegations of environmental crimes at the former nuclear weapons plant. So…

The Visit Denver Hall of Fame dinner on March 4 served up a few ironic moments alongside the beef entree. There was John Hickenlooper, praising inductee Pat Bowlen — when the start of Hickenlooper’s political career has been tagged to his campaign against selling the naming rights of the new…

Plutonium has a half-life of 20,000 years, and the controversy over the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant should continue at least that long. With good reason: If we forget that the plant sixteen miles upwind from Denver processed plutonium and other deadly materials, some day the land could turn…

Denver’s already got a reputation as the cannabis capital of the country. But Jeff Peckman is setting his sights much higher: He wants to create a seven-member Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission for the city. And his campaign is taking off this week. Last night, Peckman held Extra’s official “Welcome to Earth”…

Our lawyers were told to stay by the phone last Friday morning, when the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was slated to hear Steve Horner’s appeal of the division’s recent decisions that found “no probable cause” to believe that Westword had discriminated against him by publishing ads promoting ladies night events,…

The March 8 issue of Time magazine includes a postcard from Denver, the cannabis capital of the country. This city’s reputation as a mecca for medical marijuana is so pervasive that local law enforcement authorities recently paid a visit to Visit Denver, the convention and visitors bureau, to see if…

Sing-a-Bong On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a public hearing on HB 1284, which would regulate — some say snuff out — the medical marijuana industry in this state. It’s a sad come-down for the Colorado Legislature, the very body that back in 2007 made John Denver’s “Rocky…

I watched the sun rise a little earlier this morning — not because the days are growing longer, but because history suddenly got a lot shorter. On Friday, the oldest house on the historic block where I live suddenly disappeared. We knew it was going, of course. Two years ago,…

“Is Tiger out of the Woods?” asks the headline of the March 5 Entertainment Weekly story (which is only in print, not on-line) that deals with whether the adulterous athlete’s public apology will help repair his image. Among those interviewed is CNBC sports/business reporter Darren Rovell, who offers this: “The…

It was the Casa Bonita of bad steakhouses, a place where they’d cut off your tie if you dared to wear one into the place, and cut off your arteries with fatty meat and butter-laden spuds. It was the Trail Dust Steak House, and Denver was once lucky enough to…

I was on the phone with a city official late Monday, and could hear the protest outside City Hall, organized by Robert Chase, founder of the Colorado Coalition for Patients and Caregivers, who’s asking for a recall of the Denver City Council members who voted for the ordinance regulating medical…

Keep chomping on your candy bar! Although several Colorado sales tax exemptions have been removed effective today, including “nonessential items related to sales of food and beverages” (i.e., to-go containers), materials used in direct mail advertising and standardized computer software, candy and soft drinks — and fans of these unhealthy…

By the end of the day Friday, February 19, just one week before the deadline for medical marijuana dispensaries to apply for their official Denver dispensary licenses, just 61 had done so. That was out of 500-plus outfits that said they were in the medical marijuana business when they’d applied…

On the last Thursday of February 2009, I was sitting with the state’s newspaper publishers and editors at the annual Colorado Press Association luncheon, waiting for a speech by Governor Bill Ritter, when phones around the room started vibrating: Word had just come down that the Rocky Mountain News would…

Medical marijuana dispensaries face a looming deadline in Denver. On Monday, March 1, any dispensary that hasn’t applied for a medical marijuana dispensary license must “cease operations,” according to an announcement sent by the city yesterday. Cease operations, or what? The release doesn’t say, but it does reveal that by…

Call it pot luck: Colorado’s medical marijuana business is paying off in a big way for local artists. The Chronic-le, Westword’s quarterly medical marijuana supplement, is now the sponsor of the MasterMind awards — and when the 2010 class of MasterMinds was announced this past weekend, it pushed the program…

The stereotypical pothead moves slowly — but this is ridiculous. By last Friday — the end of the second week during which medical marijuana dispensaries could file their now-required dispensary applications with the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses — exactly 61 had done so. Which means that with just…

I just stopped by La Fiesta for lunch, as people have been stopping by the Mexican restaurant at 2340 Champa Street since 1964, when the Herrera family turned an old Safeway into a Denver institution. (That’s the original menu above.) Which got me wondering: Is there a Mexican restaurant in…

President Barack Obama came to Denver yesterday to raise funds for incumbent (by a year) Senator Michael Bennet — but he probably lost him votes with a massive, rush-hour traffic jam that was messier than a Florida hanging-chads recount. Obama landed at Buckley shortly before 3 p.m. and went straight…

The circus is coming to town today, and it’s playing the Fillmore. Not the inside of the Fillmore Auditorium — that’s where President Barack Obama will address a “Grassroots Rally” at 3 p.m. — but the outside of the facility at 1510 Clarkson Street, where protesters will gather all day…