Denver Department of Excise and Licenses Wants a New Name

For the first time since 2019, a Denver city department is trying to change its name.

The Department of Excise and Licenses, responsible for overseeing licensing in the city, wants to be called the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection.

In 1971, the Department of Safety and Excise split into two agencies, and the Department of Excise and Licenses was born. But these days, the department doesn’t collect excise taxes at all. Those taxes are handled by the Department of Finance, so half of Excise and Licenses’ name is a misnomer.

Additionally, the department wants to add consumer protection to the name to better reflect the modern iteration of work done through licensing.

“It's been a long time coming,” says Molly Duplechian, executive director of the department. “The history of the department goes back to prohibition and liquor licensing, and that was really the bulk of the work that the department focused on for a really long time. …We have expanded and grown over the last several decades, with some of those newer licenses being residential rentals, short-term rentals, marijuana, natural medicine.”

Denver doesn’t require licensing for every business, only those that have outsized impacts on public safety like child care facilities, body artists, alarm companies, crematoriums, junkyards, parking lots, food vendors, exotic dancers, marijuana businesses, psychedelics facilities and liquor licensees.

In total, the department issues over 100 license types. Security guards were the largest sector overseen by the department until the recent advent of residential rental licensing, which now spans over 26,000 licenses issued.

“We're not just a bureaucratic agency regulating for the purpose of wanting to collect fees for issuing business licenses,” Duplechian notes. “The reason we do that is because we want to ensure the public’s health and safety through compliant businesses.”

Duplechian has worked within the department for eight years and says changing the name has always been on her mind. When Mayor Mike Johnston took office two years ago, she says they agreed that changing the name would fit in with Johnston’s goal of modernizing government.

“The Department of Excise and Licenses protects Denver consumers and ensures businesses are operating ethically in our city,” Johnston says in a statement. “Changing the name to the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection is a simple, yet impactful modification that will help the public understand and access the critical work coming from this agency.”

Denver City Councilmember Stacie Gilmore is a sponsor of the name-change measure. She worked closely with Excise and Licenses in 2021, when she spearheaded the effort to establish licensing for rental properties as a way to even the scale between renters and landlords. For Duplechian, that’s a clear example of the consumer protection lens the department wants to emphasize with the name change. (Although the rental property licensing process has been criticized for not doing enough, there were no checks at all to ensure rental properties met basic city health standards previously.)

Duplechian also cites short-term rental licensing as a consumer protection measure as the department makes sure people are only renting out their primary residence, which improves the housing market overall. Additionally those licenses protect “the community and neighbors from having a problematic short-term rental operating next door to them,” she says.

A lesser-known licensing area: parking lots and garages, which represents an opportunity to increase consumer protection, according to Duplechian, as the department is hearing more about a lack of lighting and security in lots across town, as well as predatory towing.

The department recently set up a consumer protection portal so people can more easily submit complaints against businesses that either have a license but aren't behaving correctly or aren't licensed at all. Complaints have led to noise restrictions on local bars like Number Thirty Eight, while other department efforts, like shutting down problematic spaces such as Sancho's Broken Arrow and the Beta Event Center, resulted from police intervention that was then elevated to Excise and Licenses.

The portal could help identify issues before crimes take place, Excise and Licenses argues. Additionally, Duplechian says the department is working on a stronger referral process so complaints that aren’t under the licensing purview can still be handled appropriately. The portal doesn’t change the department’s work but gives people another way to interact with government in a way that can help them, she adds.

“It all goes back to the core of what we're trying to do with this really small but important change, is just increase people's understanding and ability to access services,” Duplechian says.

City council’s Business, Arts, Workforce, Climate & Aviation Services Committee will vote on the name change today, July 16. From there, the full council will be asked to refer the idea to voters, who must approve changes to the city charter.

“We're hoping it's pretty self explanatory and that people can see that removing the term excise, an outdated term that doesn't really resonate with the general public, is beneficial,” Duplechian says.