Group Pushing Denver Night Mayor Changing Its Name, Diving Into Safety Solutions

The 87 Foundation, a group formed to preserve the Mile High City's cultural identity and vibrant nightlife scene through a "night mayor" approach, is currently in the process of changing its name to ONE Denver.

But it's not just a new moniker that's being rolled out: The group is also working to dive into more safety solutions for local revelers and establishments by commissioning research to gather data on the current state of Denver's nighttime economy.

ONE Denver has contracted the Responsible Hospitality Institute to conduct a landscape assessment. ONE Denver is raising money to fund the study, which will cost an estimated $250,000 and take eighteen months to complete. The money will also go toward programming and coordinating solutions in the meantime.

“We don't want our survey of the communities to be entirely extractive,” says Stephen Brackett, executive director of ONE Denver and founding member of the band Flobots and nonprofit group Youth on Record. “At the same time that we're trying to ask people how they want to celebrate their time in the city, we want to actually be able to have activations like cookouts.”

Other ideas that have been floated include small concerts in neighborhoods, where people would get to enjoy themselves while sharing their vision for nightlife in the city.

ONE Denver wants to strengthen the conversation, not reinvent it.

“The bars and the venues and all those places are deeply embedded stakeholders who have a direct interest in everything being much, much safer,” Brackett says. “They already are spending a lot of time and effort in working with neighborhood associations and working with local police and trying to find solutions and all these things.”

ONE stands for Office of Nighttime Economy — the heads of which are sometimes colloquially dubbed "night mayor." Such a person (and office) would be in charge of coordinating the city’s activities outside of traditional government hours, from bars and nightlife to child care and transportation options for those who work late shifts.

Brackett has been talking with people across Denver about the idea.

“This is one of the things a lot of folks aren't thinking about it,” Brackett says. “There's even the possibility that the gap is so pervasive that it's almost invisible. That means so many of us are totally unaware.”

When discussing the issue, he typically asks people to think of a place teenagers can go at night.

When they can’t, Brackett points out that there could be a solution if we actually recognized the problem; once people identify the issue, they always question how it can be solved, he says.

Then there are the times when the gap is uncomfortably visible.

This happened in July 2022, when Denver Police Department officers fired their weapons into a crowd outside Larimer Beer Hall at the intersection of 20th and Larimer streets, where LoDo meets the Ballpark neighborhood.

The cops were confronting Jordan Waddy, a 23-year-old club-goer with a gun who'd been in an altercation that night. Three officers fired their weapons into the crowd, injuring six bystanders and Waddy, who never fired his gun. A grand jury later decided to indict one of the officers, Brandon Ramos, who is scheduled to be arraigned on September 8. Waddy is scheduled for a jury trial in November.

On August 17, the DPD responded to a shooting at 22nd and Welton streets where one man had been shot and was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

“Preliminary investigation indicates the incident began as an altercation that resulted in the shooting,” the DPD reported on August 30. “Through the course of the investigation, detectives identified Quadre Lamb as a suspect.”

Lamb was arrested on August 29 and is being held for investigation of first-degree murder, according to police.

On August 19, two people were killed in a triple shooting at 28th and Welton streets. The DPD has identified Tyrell Braxton as a suspect in that incident, but he has not been arrested. Police are asking those with information to contact Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867 or visit metrodenvercrimestoppers.com.

These crimes represent the fourth, fifth and sixth incidents where police were dispatched for possible murder in downtown Denver this year. By and large, people don’t die when they go downtown — but killings certainly capture the most attention.

“In my past life as an educator, almost all of my days in class, there were no fights,” Brackett says. “But when there is it has a way of casting a pall over that classroom for a while, and I don't think that that's unfair.… Until we're able to change the narrative or take control over what the work looks like, the only thing that you hear about nighttime economy are the deficits: how this isn't safe, how this isn’t working, regardless of how many days have been safe.”

ONE Denver wants to move past the worries and continue to focus on solutions, Brackett says.

For example, he notes how evidence shows that activation of a larger diversity of activities and groups in a downtown area can limit these outlying incidents. But how do we get there? That’s what the city is pondering now.

In Mayor Mike Johnston’s Vibrant Denver transition committee for Arts & Venues — which Brackett co-chaired — the group considered the prospect of a night mayor. “There was encouragement and openness to pursue this possibility, but many were not familiar with this type of role,” the committee’s final memo concurred on August 8. It suggested bringing together stakeholders to get a sense of what is needed and clarifying confusion around the term "night mayor" itself, as well as pointing out that it needs to be clear that an office of nighttime economy should not create more bureaucratic obstacles.

“A lot of it's just general confusion,” Brackett says. “They’ve heard the words 'night mayor' and they're like, ‘What? We're gonna have another election?’” … It's just the sexy title. It's just a mayoral appointment for somebody who's overseeing nighttime economy.”

Other times, Brackett says people will think it’s just about bars — which isn’t the case. Rather, inefficiencies in how the economy is coordinated and looked after during nighttime hours are causing quality-of-life deficits, he explains.

“A lot of times I'll talk to people, and I'll say how taxes work in such a way that our taxes go toward the creation and the ongoing maintenance of services that make our lives easier,” Brackett says. “For people who are literally working at night, most of those services are not available. So they're paying into a tax fund that doesn't actually work for them unless they're able to take a day off.”

Ideas like coordinating with Parks & Recreation, libraries and other businesses would be on the table for an office of nighttime economy. Brackett has met with Johnston about the idea.

"One of Mayor Johnston's priorities is to invest in downtown Denver to bring about economic revitalization and make our city center a place where people truly want to live, work and play every day,” Johnston spokesperson Jordan Fuja says. “The mayor continues to meet with community partners and city staff to identify the best ways to make the vision of a vibrant downtown a reality, and this focus will be reflected in the upcoming 2024 budget priorities."

Fuja points out that the city’s work to invest in the downtown area — like studies identifying adaptive reuse options for office buildings and funding for growth in Denver businesses — show that Johnston is on board with investing in life downtown.

Brackett invites interested parties to get involved.

“What I've seen data-wise is that there's a lot of hidden levers that we haven't even revealed," he says, "that could actually make life in this city safer, more fun, and just more efficient."