Neighbor Complaints Jeopardize Bar Nun's Liquor License

Since 2020, Bar Nun has brought slightly sacrilegious fun to Capitol Hill, but some neighbors who live next door to the 1225 Logan Street bar want the volume turned down.

Bar Nun just had a liquor license renewal hearing, which is unusual in Denver, where the majority of liquor licenses only have hearings for new applications.

But city records show there have been 35 complaints about Bar Nun, largely involving sound, since it opened. Of those complaints, 31 are from the same person. At an August 14 hearing, Denver Department of Excise & Licenses inspector John Walker said some of those 35 complaints may have been counted twice, leaving at least 25 complaints the department is certain are unique instances.

Walker said Bar Nun was on Excise & Licenses’ radar after holding comedy events and trivia nights that would have required a cabaret license, which the bar doesn’t have. After Walker contacted owner William "Butch" Buckley, Bar Nun stopped holding those events.

“After the incident with the cabaret license, [Walker] reached out to the complainant, who was a neighbor,” City Hearing Officer Edward Tilbury described after an August 14 renewal hearing. “She gave him background on the level of complaints that have been made to the city. ...They felt the complaints about the noise were founded, and then they started this process of trying to figure out what to do.”

Though it may seem like one neighbor drove the hearing, Walker said other neighbors are frustrated. Four people, including the main complaint filer, Deborah Bayes, testified at the hearing asking for conditions on the next iteration of the bar's license.

Buckley does not agree with his bar's noisy reputation among some of his neighbors, however, pointing out that Bar Nun has never received an official citation from the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment. The DDPHE confirms it has visited the bar, but could not verify whether sound levels there exceed legal limits.

“Even going to this hearing or having it come up was just bizarre to me,” Buckley tells Westword, adding that he has tried to do everything he can to mitigate sound, even going so far as to offer Bayes custom $6,000 soundproof windows for her home next door to the bar.

“We're doing everything we can to fix this issue but being met with blockages,” Buckley says. “When does the good of the few outweigh the good of the many? Because we do a lot for the city. I paid over $400,000 in taxes last year. We're generating income for that part of the city.”

But according to the neighbors who testified at the hearing, Bar Nun generates too much noise, trash and cigarette smoking outside of their homes. Buckley says he works to make his bar inclusive to people of all races and sexualities, and thinks people are looking for a scapegoat to blame as Denver grows.

“Since I've been here over thirty years, I've seen so many changes, from a little cowtown to a major metropolitan area that's a force to be reckoned with,” Buckley says. “Especially in my neighborhood, where the density of population is massive, I don't think there's another neighborhood like that. ... We have to deal and adapt with a whole lot of different things. There's people in my neighborhood that aren't willing to do that.”

He argues that Bar Nun bar is being blamed for trash and noise from the homeless population, noise from trash pickup itself and increased foot traffic in Cap Hill since pandemic restrictions on bars and restaurants expired about three years ago.

Neighbors testified that they are worried about their property value decreasing if the bar continues to emit noise late at night. Allison Harris, one neighbor who spoke at the hearing, said she doesn’t think the bar exhibits enough care toward the neighborhood, and that trash spills from Bar Nun into yards. She added that some of the trash is likely from people gathering in front waiting for rides or from homeless people rifling through dumpsters out back, but that the bar could pay attention and close the dumpsters more often. Buckley says the bar has agreed not to take trash out after 10 p.m. to mitigate noise problems in the alleyway. Still, other neighbors said there is often noise from the small area outside the bar or patio where people gather to smoke cigarettes, which is not covered by sound mitigation. They also wished that the door into the bar had an automatic open-close mechanism to be sure sound inside the bar stays inside.

Buckley says he has added four inches of foam sound mitigation and sound-deadening acoustic tiles to the bar and has worked with his staff to close the doors faster and more often. At the hearing, Buckley testified that adding sound mitigation has cost him around $5,000.

There has not been a sound complaint since January 2024, according to DDPHE public information officer Amber Campbell.

“We have had sporadic complaints regarding the noise at Bar Nun since it opened. However, we don’t have any recent violations,” Campbell says. “At the times our investigators have responded to complaints, the noise from people on the patio as well as the overall neighborhood noise have always been louder than the music. This not only makes it impossible to take noise level readings for the music; those types of noise (people/environment) are not enforceable by our department.”

In January, a DDPHE inspector who visited the bar found sound from amplified music did not exceed background noise levels of 60 decibels or the sound of unamplified patron voices. That case was closed as unfounded, Campbell says.

Some neighbors who live nearby testified that they want the bar to have noise conditions on its license, but Micah Moncrief, who lives across the street, said at the hearing that she hasn’t had problems with sound since the patio closes at 10 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on weekends.

Neighbors who testified in support of the bar's sound limits want the patio to close by 10 p.m. on weekends, as well. At the hearing, Buckley testified that doing so would cost the bar an estimated $192,000 in revenue over a year.

“It's debilitating emotionally to provide this much stuff and to try to be a good neighbor, and to have people complain all the time,” Buckley says.

There used to be a good-neighbor agreement between Bar Nun and the neighbors that specified a midnight patio closure on weekends and a 10 p.m. closure on weekdays. Although the hours remain in place, that agreement was voided after a dispute between the parties involved, and the current liquor license does not include terms regarding hours of operation.

Tilbury’s final recommendation was for Excise & Licenses to approve the liquor license renewal with the following conditions included: closing the patio at 10 p.m. on weeknights and at midnight on weekends; not dumping glass, metal or other noisy trash after 10 p.m. each night; keeping all doors closed when not in use; and marking a 25-foot no-smoking perimeter from residences with conspicuous signs that are at least one square foot in size and clearly lit.

Molly Duplechian, executive director of Excise & Licenses, is currently reviewing the testimony and the hearing officer's recommendation to make a final licensing decision. Eric Escudero, communications director for the department, says there is no set timeline for that review.

Buckley hopes the licensing decision will wrap up sooner than later, as having the possibility of denial or restrictive conditions has stopped him from adding improvements, like a new ice machine to the bar, because he's worried about being forced to close.

Though no one at the hearing testified that they want Bar Nun to close, Buckley argues that that is what the result would be if Bar Nun must abide by early patio closures on weekends.

“If those restrictions are accepted, we will close down,” Buckley says. “I can't take a hit that big to the business.”