Wake-Up Call: Holiday parties go to pot

At holiday parties this weekend, everyone was talking about pot. I haven’t been asked about marijuana this much since my first day of college in 1972, when I wore a hippie-print dress and my dormmates assumed I could hook them up. People were talking about the booming business in medical…

Rack & Rye opens tonight in LoDo

Paul Piciocchi is putting into the former home of Alto, opens tonight at 1320 15th Street. The Drink, a sports tavern, made its debut on November 20; Mix Music Lounge is set to open next week. But right now, it’s Rack & Rye, which will host private parties starting at…

Wake-Up Call: Pull some strings for Peacejam

It’s been a tough year for Peacejam, the homegrown nonprofit that over the past fifteen years has reached out to hundreds of thousands of kids around the globe, showing them that in the toughest circumstances, it’s still possible to push for peace — and then proving it by bringing ten…

The most exclusive joint in town: a pot in every chicken

First, the folks behind 8 Rivers open a medical marijuana dispensary up the street. Now comes word that Colorado’s first “gourmet marijuana restaurant” will be opening next week in Denver. The official details are being kept under wraps until next week, but yes, all the culinary offerings will contain pot…

The glitch that almost stole Christmas

This is not energy conservation here, folks, this is a glitch,” quipped Mayor John Hickenlooper at last Friday’s “Light the Lights” event, after he and son Teddy flipped the switch on the new LED light display at the City and County Building — and the entire scene went black a…

8 Rivers goes to pot — in a good way

Wanda James and Scott Durrah, the owners of 8 Rivers, just celebrated the end of their first year at 1550 Blake Street in LoDo, where they moved their restaurant after a successful run in the tiny spot at 3609 West 32nd Avenue that now holds Venue. “You can’t have a…

Wake-Up Call: Stirring the pot at Denver City Council today

Unlike Michigan, Colorado doesn’t have a Cannabis College — not yet. But the entire state is getting quite an education in both the efficacy of medical marijuana in soothing certain maladies and the difficulty of imposing new rules on dispensing it. Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown has gotten a real…

Wake-Up Call: Marijuana fuels the new rush to the Rockies

One hundred and fifty years after the last rush to the Rockies, when gold was discovered back in 1859, a new rush is on. This time, adventurers are mining medical marijuana — and business is smoking! Every day, I get a call from another acquaintance thinking of getting into the…

Wake-Up Call: Tax marks the pot in December tomorrow

On December 1, the City of Denver will start collecting city sales tax from every medical marijuana dispensary in the city. “Tax revenue agents will be meeting with all dispensaries, giving them the information,” says Denver City Attorney David Fine. Not that the city has a list of all the…

Wake-Up Call: Top Ten Turkeys for 2009

There’s still a month to go before the year ends — plenty of time for more people to join the elite flock of fuck-ups for 2009 (and for Josh McDaniels to get back on the list, after his last-second reprieve with yesterday’s win). Still, there’s been no shortage of Colorado…

Colorado politicos have all gone to pot!

I haven’t thought about pot this much since eighth grade,” says one Colorado official. But over the past two months, as the medical marijuana industry has continued to boom in this state — inspiring a parallel boom in efforts to regulate the industry, with some municipalities proposing rules and others…

Give thanks for SAME Cafe

Before you tuck into your turkey, give thanks for people like Brad and Libby Birkey, who in October 2006 opened SAME Café – a pay-what-you-want restaurant at 2023 East Colfax Avenue whose name stands for So that All May Eat. Running SAME Café has “really opened our eyes,” Libby told…

Wake-Up Call: Calling all Colorado turkeys

Who’s the biggest turkey in Colorado? We’re accepting all nominations, fair or fowl, for the most unsavory characters in the state this year, and will post our Top Ten Turkeys of 2009 list here first thing Friday. And although it’s hard to imagine anyone topping the antics of Richard Heene,…

John Mariani takes a poke at normal person Sheehan

John Mariani, the food writer for Esquire, publishes a weekly newsletter, Virtual Gourmet, in which he regularly serves up industry news — and another critic. In the November 22 edition, it was Jason Sheehan’s turn. Under the heading “THAT’S VERY GOOD, JUST KEEP ON TRYING TO THINK LIKE A NORMAL…

Wake-Up Call: Let’s give thanks for political turkeys

On Saturday, a group of Tea Party activists gathered at the Colorado State Capitol to celebrate Thanksgiving — and small government — by reading the Mayflower Compact. For political theater that laid an egg, it didn’t come close to the turkey served by Roy Romer-era Lieutenant Governor Mike Callihan, who…