2 westword.com WESTWORD JANUARY 19-25, 2023 | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | W ® 7 SQUEEZED OUT One of the last holdout houses in RiNo could soon disappear. There goes the neighborhood! BY TEAGUE BOHLEN 12 FRESH TALENT Samora Kash welcomes new drag queens with Drafted. BY CLEO MIRZA 15 IT FEELS RIGHT Nearly a decade after breaking industry rules to create Work & Class, co-owner Tony Maciag is retiring. BY MOLLY MARTIN 19 IT’S ALL HAPPENING The Velveteers are home from touring and ready to shred. BY EMILY FERGUSON 4 News 12 Culture 15 Cafe 19 Music CONCERTS/CLUBS ................................... 22 28 Marijuana TOKE OF THE TOWN ................................ 28 ASK A STONER ......................................... 30 STRAIN GANG .......................................... 32 VOLUME 46 NUMBER 21 JANUARY 19-25, 2023 E D I T O R I A L Editor Patricia Calhoun Editorial Operations Manager Jane R. Le News Editor Kyle Wagner Culture Editor Emily Ferguson Food and Drink Editor Molly Martin Cannabis Editor Thomas Mitchell Staff Writers Catie Cheshire, Conor McCormick-Cavanagh, Michael Roberts Senior Contributor Alan Prendergast Contributors Amy Antonation, John Bear, Staci Berry, Teague Bohlen, Jake Browne, Hyde Chrastina, Jacqueline Collins, Linnea Covington, Justin Criado, Susan Froyd, Lizzie Goldsmith, Nick Hutchinson, Marty Jones, Danielle Krolewicz, Karl Christian Krumpholz, Kristen Kuchar, Katrina Leibee, Cleo Mirza, Abigail Nueve, Ryan Pachmayer, Michael Paglia, Kristin Pazulski, Adam Perry, Ashlee Redger, Evan Semón, Amber Taufen, Toni Tresca, Kastle Waserman, Juliet Wittman A R T Art Director Jay Vollmar P R O D U C T I O N Production Manager Michael Wilson Assistant Production Manager Erin Kirk Graphic Designers Chris Arneson, Tori Bohling, Danielle East C R E A T I V E S E R V I C E S Senior Graphic Designer Allie Seidel A D V E R T I S I N G Account Manager Natalie Proctor Senior Multimedia Account Executives Amy Camera, Aaron Lembke, Danelle Trujillo Multimedia Account Executives Trayl Chaffee, Quincy Lynch, Katelyn Meeker, Ari Rothschild, William Savoie, Allison Wissink Operations Administrative Coordinator Heyward Manning Event Marketing Manager Britton Sacharski House Account Manager Anna Hortik Operations Manager Maddie Miller Digital and Advertising Sales Manager Taylor Wheeler Advertising Director Teri Driskell C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Ty Koepke Circulation Coordinator Chris Speed B U S I N E S S Business Manager Sarah Dunahay Financial Accountant Robert Scribner AR Coordinator Stacy Phillips Receptionist Cindy Perez Associate Publisher Tracy Kontrelos Publisher Scott Tobias V O I C E M E D I A G R O U P Executive Editor Christine Brennan Executive Associate Editor Andy Van De Voorde Corporate Controller Beth Cook Legal Counsel Steve Suskin Chief Financial Offi cer Jeff Mars Chief Executive Offi cer Scott Tobias V M G N A T I O N A L National Advertising: 1-888-278-9866, www.voicemediagroup.com Senior Vice President of Sales Operations Joe Larkin D I S T R I B U T I O N Westword is available free of charge. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased for $1, payable in advance at the Westword offi ce. Westword may be distributed only by authorized Westword distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of Westword, take more than one copy of each issue. C O P Y R I G H T The entire contents of Westword are copyright 2022 by Denver Westword LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, with- out the express written permission of the Publisher, Westword, P.O. Box 5970, Denver CO 80217. Back issues may be purchased for $2 each plus postage from the Westword offi ce (issues older than six weeks subject to availability). The Best of Denver 2022 is $5 plus postage. Story reprints are available for $1 plus post- age; call 303-296-7744 to place an order, or check our archives at www.westword.com. Westword (USPS478230) is published weekly by Denver Westword LLC, 1278 Lincoln Street, Denver CO 80203. Periodicals postage paid in Denver. Domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $50 yearly. Postmaster: Send address changes to Westword, P.O. Box 5970, Denver CO 80217. Mailing address: P.O. Box 5970, Denver, CO 80217 Street address: 1278 Lincoln Street, Denver, CO 80203 For retail or classifi ed advertising, call: 303-296-7744 For general information, call: 303-296-7744 For Editorial, email: [email protected] DENVER’S TWENTY-YEAR BITCH Every twenty years, voters like to surprise this city with a call for real change. It sounded in 1963, fi ve years after the city celebrated its hundredth anniversary, with a barrage of boosterism, when incumbent Mayor Richard Batterson lost to City Auditor Tom Cur- rigan, a solid numbers guy who’d promised to clean up the Denver Police Department scandal that ultimately sent thirty cops to prison for crimes ranging from gambling to prostitution to burglary. Things were no longer business as usual in the Mile High City, though Currigan certainly encouraged business: He oversaw the construction of Denver General Hospital and a new convention center that was named for him, as well as the expansion of Staple- ton International Airport and the creation of neighborhood health centers. But he also pushed for the Skyline Urban Renewal Project that wiped away most of downtown’s history and character. And less than two years after winning a second term, Currigan stepped down, saying that he couldn’t afford to send his kids to college on $14,000 a year. “Thomas Currigan was a dedicated public servant who improved safety, worked to launch Denver onto the global stage and helped shape the city into the great one it is today,” Mayor Michael Hancock said after Currigan passed away in 2014. About that great city: Currigan was re- placed as mayor by Public Works chief Bill McNichols, who was subsequently elected to three full terms. He was going for a fourth in 1983 when Federico Peña joined a fi eld of challengers that included Denver District Attorney Dale Tooley, who’d run against the old gray mayor twice before, and Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies direc- tor Wellington Webb (yes, that Wellington Webb). Peña, a 36-year-old attorney and state lawmaker who’d moved to Denver from Texas and proceeded to shake up the Colorado Legislature, seemed the least likely candidate — to anyone who hadn’t been paying attention to how Denver was chang- ing, with a young and diverse collection of residents ready to challenge the good-old- boy network. Peña had a vision for a more inclusive future; the slogan “Imagine a Great City” (created, in full disclosure, by the other two co-founders of Westword, who fi ve years later had moved on to imagining greater things); and a smart way to get the word out in the pre-social media era: yard signs. A walloping Christmas storm that made the weather of this past December look like a Honolulu vacation buried McNichol’s fi nal campaign, and Peña went on to face Tooley in the runoff. It turned out that voters could indeed imagine a great city, and Peña fi lled the mayor’s offi ce with a crew of visionaries who could foresee everything but the Denver bust that was coming. Despite that downturn, he was able to save what was left of lower down- town by creating the LoDo Historic District, get Denver International Airport approved, bring major league baseball to town and, thanks to planning head Jennifer Moulton, actually start considering how to structure new developments in a way that made sense. Twenty years after Peña’s surprise election in 1983, Webb — who’d been elected after Peña fi nished two terms — was fi nishing his third and fi nal term as mayor, and a half-dozen wannabes were lining up. Police Chief Ari Zavaras was an early favorite, but there were other familiar names in the fi eld. And then came one far less familiar but hard to forget: John Hickenlooper, who’d co-founded the Wynkoop Brewing Co. when he was an un- employed geologist and launched a campaign to save the Mile High Stadium name, got into the race in January 2003, just four months before the fi rst vote. He started out polling at 3 percent, but with savvy behind-the-scenes work and a series of commercials that showed government could be not only accessible but humorous, he won big endorsements and became the frontrunner in the fi nal match-up against City Auditor Don Mares. (Another history lesson: No auditor has become mayor since Currigan.) And then a city ready for change voted Hickenlooper right into the mayor’s offi ce from behind the bar, in another classic generational shift. Fast-forward another twenty years. Hick- enlooper is now a U.S. senator, and while the half-dozen candidates he’d faced in 2003 looked like a formidable crowd, close to thirty people have said they’re running for mayor, with the deadline for petitions Janu- ary 19. But even with all those candidates, that array of choices, it feels like Denver residents are looking for something more. For something else. Once again, it could be time to scratch that twenty-year bitch. — PATRICIA CALHOUN ON THE COVER ILLUSTRATION BY JAY VOLLMAR CALHOUN WA K E - U P C A L L Don’t miss a word! The stories in this print edition are just a fraction of the pieces we publish every week on westword.com. For a cheat sheet on all that content, subscribe to our daily newsletter at westword.com/ profi le?newsletter=12003988. You can also follow @Denver Westword on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And it’s all free! ART BY GETT Y IMAGES
