‘Dick Move’ Closes Popular Denver Bakery Just Before the Holiday Rush

‘Tis the season…for tax seizures. On the heels of Your Mom’s House being seized on December 17, the doors are now locked at another local business for the same reason — and it’s pushing back.

If you’re hoping to pick up some holiday cookies for Christmas, Hanukkah or New Year’s, don’t plan on getting them from Maggie & Molly’s Sweet Life bakery. According to a message posted to the store’s website, it’s been shut down by the city over a tax dispute. 

“The City of Denver made a complete dick move to renege on a tax payment plan they offered that provided a January 20 due date,” reads the defiant message in all caps. “We are officially over and inconsolable about the betrayal.”

The bakery, which began as an online business in 2005, opened its brick-and-mortar location on Sixth Avenue in 2010, next to the Truffle Cheese Shop (which closed earlier this year after being seized for unpaid taxes). It’s offered a range of cakes, pies, pastries, cookies and cupcakes, available both as online pickup orders or in-store purchases; it was a 2013 Best of Denver winner for its coffee cake. 

The bakery has also become known for accommodating special requests and personalized orders for occasions such as wedding cakes, parties and, of course, holiday seasonal fare. That includes vibrantly decorated Christmas sugar cookie trays and gingerbread cookies, a Hanukkah sugar cookie decorating kit, and “confetti cookies” and a “clock strikes midnight” cake for New Year’s. 

That the store was forced to close during Hanukkah and just a week before Christmas Eve, not to mention the coming New Year’s Eve celebrations, is likely to disrupt at least some customers’ festive plans. 

“We are working through refunds and will fulfill as many holiday orders as we can,” reads the website message. “Since we now have our customer orders, you’ll be notified.”

As the website message indicates, owner Mary Lovett is not one to hold back her opinions. She’s been a go-to source for the media, offering comments on issues affecting restaurants and food businesses, such as the need to raise menu prices to cover Denver’s minimum wage increases (which she supports) and the federal ban on artificial dyes (which she does not). 

According to the warrant issued by the Denver Department of Finance, the bakery owes over $30,000 in unpaid sales tax dating back to December 2023. “When businesses charge customers sales tax but then do not submit that sales tax to the city, the city is responsible for becoming involved,” the department says in a statement to Westword. “We try to work with taxpayers, often for significant periods of time, to ensure they can continue to operate. Warrants are only issued after repeated attempts to collect taxes from the business fall short (in this case, since December 2023). We want to see every business in Denver succeed, and warrants are an absolute last resort.”

Lovett has not yet responded to requests for comment on this issue.