Recess Is Canceled: Denver Anti-Vaxxer Dating Event Pushed Out After Controversy

Denver’s anti-vaccine dating event got a dose of hard medicine when its venue pulled out, but the gathering may make a miraculous recovery at a new location.

Unjected, the anti-vaccination dating app, initially planned a singles mixer at Recess Beer Garden on May 29, marking the first stop on a multi-state tour intended to connect singles who were openly against the COVID-19 vaccine; the platform also opposes “vaccination of any kind.” But Recess shut the idea down days after the announcement.

“Because the event organizers did not comply with Recess policies for hosting large events, and due to the escalating safety concerns surrounding this situation, this advertised event will not take place at Recess Beer Garden,” the business said in a release issued May 13.

The LoHi beer garden noted that it has received “hostile rhetoric surrounding this situation, including hateful language, online attacks, threats toward our business, and harassment directed at our staff members who were not involved in this event” since Unjected posted its announcement May 12, and called the actions “unacceptable.”

In response, the Unjected organizers said they have already lined up another location and that Recess “bent over to the woke mob.”

“Anti-vaxxers still getting kicked out in 2026. Vaccine cultists,” the dating platform wrote on its Instagram story. The new location, close to Coors Field, won’t be announced until 24 hours before the event, according to the group.

Under Recess’s Instagram post regarding the cancellation, anti-vaxxers continued that “unacceptable” rhetoric.

“Ha ha recess is over b*tches,” one user wrote.

Negative Yelp reviews have also begun, with two pages of one-star reviews by the morning of May 14.

“Yet another disgustingly woke establishment. I won’t have to worry about and will share this with my entire network,” John D wrote in a one-star review.

In an interview with Westword on May 12, Catherine Tiner, the LoHi beer garden’s director of marketing, said that “Recess did not organize, sponsor or formally host the meetup being circulated online.”

Shelby Hosana, a Hawaii resident who founded Unjected in 2021, said the location was chosen randomly.

Jurinsky owns JJ’s Place, a bar in Aurora that recently saw its name highlighted throughout social media for allegedly receiving bad reviews when putting on the contentious Turning Point USA halftime show during the Super Bowl.

She has also often taken a stance against the COVID-19 vaccine. For example, she made an X post questioning the vaccine’s validity just a month ago.

While Jurinsky says she hadn’t heard of the Recess bar controversy, she questioned why a bar — especially in times of local businesses shuttering their doors — would turn down the opportunity to serve guests.

“I have hosted so many events. Events I believe in and events, maybe, I don’t believe in,” she tells Westword. “For me, this would just be a group getting together. It just sounds like a dating group looking for like-minded people. I certainly wouldn’t turn them away or make fun of them.”

She adds that JJ’s Place would certainly welcome the group, but notes that it may be a bit too far from Denver.

The former councilwoman questions the uproar if COVID mask mandates are long past prominent; to her, it’s just a group of people expressing a similar stance. As long as they aren’t harassing other customers, it shouldn’t be an issue, she says.

“We’re talking six years past COVID. We’re talking about teenagers that didn’t get the vaccine because of their parents, who are now adults,” she says, adding that both her opinion and the meeting should not be considered political in nature.

“The vaccine transcends political affiliation,” she concludes noting that she has met people on both sides of the aisle against the vaccine.