Jake Cox
Audio By Carbonatix
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The Nativ Hotel & Gatsby Social, the LoDo venue at 1612 Wazee Street, used shoddy fire alarms that notify no one, ignored orders to close in March, and neglected hundreds of other city fire code violations for more than year, according to the City of Denver, which suspended its business licenses on Friday, April 10, and could shut it down for good.
“This is the most severe immediate licensing discipline action the city can take against a business,” says Eric Escudero, the spokesperson for Denver Licensing and Consumer Protection. “It is only used in very rare circumstances when there is the most severe threat to safety because of alleged law violations.”
The city suspended the liquor, food, lodging and cabaret licenses for Nativ Hotel after several failed inspections by Denver Fire, the Denver Police Department and the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection. Escudero adds that “the hotel is being given 48 hours to cease operations to ensure hotel occupants can be notified. The nightclub is closed.“
The summary suspension order identifies Thierry Rignol as the owner and manager, but it notes that LCP identified the on-site manager as “Hussam Kayali aka Valentes Corleons,” the former owner of the infamous Beta Nightclub, whose license was revoked in 2021.
“Mr. Kayali has a history of running similar establishments in an unlawful manner resulting in disciplinary action against those licenses,” the order notes, referring back to Beta. “Mr. Kayali’s actions indicated a complete disregard for the law and did not warrant the Director’s confidence that [Beta] can be lawfully operated.”
Rignol told the LCP that Kayali was fired on March 27. Rignol will be required to appear at a hearing to challenge the suspension and keep his business licenses; the city has not yet set a date for the hearing. In the meantime, the venue is closed.
“The priority is issuing the order quickly since it is an emergency and the goal is to get the business to stop operating immediately,” Escudero explains. “Then the city will follow up with a date for a future hearing for the business to show cause why their license should not be revoked.”
While Nativ is closed, the city requires that Rignol keep the notice posted on the property “until further notice” and stop “selling or providing alcohol beverages, providing any form of live entertainment, permitting patron dancing on the premises, selling or providing retail food, or allowing hotel or lodging guests.”
Although fire code violations at Nativ Hotel date back to January 2025, the most recent came in response to a failed inspection on February 26. It revealed “the fire alarm system was not monitored and had fourteen failure signals within the fire alarm system itself,” according to the city’s suspension order. “The system failed to notify any third-party central station or Denver Fire Dispatch when the alarm was activated.”
The city subsequently issued a “Fire Watch” permit, and ordered Rignol to shut down the business except for the hotel. After another inspection on March 6, city inspectors noted that Rignol had made “some corrections” to the property, but it still had 847 city fire code violations, according to the order.
The city filed a complaint and a summons against Rignol. On March 25, he failed to show city inspectors documentation proving that replaced fire alarms had met federal standards, that repairs were made by a certified contractor, or that Rignol had secured permits necessary for new alarms. The city issued a stop work order for the whole business the next day, requiring the bar, nightclub and hotel to be immediately shut down.
The March stop-work order is still in place, but the DPD saw the business in full swing and welcoming customers last weekend. The police even had to rspond to a call for felony menacing at the Nativ hotel on the night of April 4, and then responded to a report of an assault there a few hours later.
“A patron was found unconscious and injured on the sidewalk in front of the premises which was again admitting patrons into the bar/nightclub portion of the business in violation of the stop work order,” according to the summary suspension description of what the DPD saw.
The location has weathered some tough times; the former FBI agent who turned it into a Bronco-themed bed-and-breakfast was scammed by a sheik; the LoDo Design District board took issue with the mural painted by subsequent owners, and then came more problems involved with the music programming.
According to the city, people have been complaining about the venue — named Denver’s Best Hip Hop Club in 2023 — since 2024, citing “improper licensing and violent events associated with the respondent’s operation and patrons.” The city also found “several licensing violations” that year, including not registering a management company. It closed in December 2024 but reopened shorly after.
