2 westword.com WESTWORD FEBRUARY 20-26, 2025 | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | W ® 13 ALL EYES BÁNH MÌ! Watch as Denver’s Vietnamese sandwich scene spreads. BY HELEN XU 6 THE BUS STOPS HERE Two RTD directors join us for a ride on the 15, Denver’s most legendary route. BY JASON HELLER 10 CONTROLLED CHAOS These Denver furniture makers work among chickens and bees. BY KRISTEN FIORE 17 SECOND ACT After eight years in prison, Christian Workman has found strength in metal music. BY JUSTIN CRIADO 10 Culture 13 Cafe 17 Music CONCERTS/CLUBS ................................... 18 23 Marijuana CANNABIS CALENDAR ............................ 23 ASK A STONER ......................................... 23 VOLUME 48 NUMBER 26 FEBRUARY 20-26, 2025 E D I T O R I A L Editor Patricia Calhoun News Editor Thomas Mitchell Food and Drink Editor Molly Martin Music Editor Emily Ferguson Culture Editor Kristen Fiore Social Media Editor Katrina Leibee Staff Writers Catie Cheshire, Jason Heller, Bennito L. 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Peri- odicals postage paid in Denver. Domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $100/year or $50/six months. 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 general information, call: 303-296-7744 For Editorial, email: [email protected] ON THE COVER PH0TOGRAPH BY VALERIA MOONCH LETTERS T O T H E E D I T O R YOU CAN COMMENT ON ANY STORY AT WESTWORD.COM; SEND LETTERS TO [email protected] 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. You can also follow @denverwestword on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. And it’s all free! ART BY CORI REDFORD “NEED A HUG?,” JASON HELLER, FEBRUARY 13 H U G I T O U T ! Talk about new age BS. If you want physical contact so badly, learn how to be a better human being. You can start with meditation and self-analysis. Walt Sobchak Thornton Transactional commodifi ed cuddles... eww. It may be a service some need, but it may also be a gateway to prostitution as either buyer or seller. Neil Paz-Cruzat Denver What kind of society has a need for pro- fessional huggers? Eric Smith Denver It’s a scientifi c fact that, completely aside from sex, physical connection and affection is very important for social primates like humans. It’s probably one of the reasons we like pets so much. Marty Perkins Cheyenne “ICE AND SAFE,” BENNITO L. KELTY, FEBRUARY 13 F E D U P O V E R I M M I G R A T I O N We should take down the Statue of Liberty. That’s no longer who we are. Might as well be honest about it. Marvin Running Horse Alamosa You may not agree with John E. Fabbri- catore Jr.’s positions (I don’t always agree with him politically), but I can tell you from personal dealings with him that he is a man of integrity and excellent moral character. Jay Muhaisen Denver He looks like Tom Homan, another evil monster. I’m all for deporting criminals, but not the good, hard-working folks who get swept up, specifi cally the DACA. Many of these people are my friends. Rachel Katz Greenholz Denver All illegal immigrants committed a crime when they entered the country. Deport all of them. Dan Hunt Severance The “migrant/refugee” report by Bennito Kelty failed to deal with the end result of end- less immigration into Denver and Colorado. Reports show that more than 40,000 illegal migrants now inhabit Sanctuary City Denver. They’ve overrun housing, welfare, schools, hospitals and services. That’s on top of our own 10,000 American homeless in Denver. To maintain such a population infl ux cannot be sustained. Most Coloradans fail to understand the “exponential growth factor” that cannot con- tinue. As CU’s Dr. Albert Bartlett said, “Unlim- ited growth cannot be sustained. You cannot sustain growth in the rates of consumption of non-renewable resources. No species can overrun the carrying capacity of a fi nite land mass.” It always leads to collapse. In 2025, we house 5.7 million people in Colo- rado. By 2050 because of massive immigration, demographers project Denver to add 1 million people and Colorado will jump to 8.7 million people. We face water, energy and resource limits. We face toxic brown cloud air pollution with every breath. We face insane traffi c on I-70 and I-25. We see horrifi c gridlock on I-70 on weekends to ski or camp. It will become impos- sible with an added 3 million people. Quality of life will spiral into the toilet. No matter how many refugees we save, the third world adds 83 million new babies, net gain, annually. We cannot save them, but we can destroy our own state, civilization and viability. It’s time to stop importing endless over- population. It’s time to think of quality of life and engage “stop growth” policies to give future generations a chance at quality of life and civilizational viability. Frosty Wooldridge Golden
