4 OCTOBER 16-22, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | W ® 6 BUCKLE UP! Waymo has landed in Denver, but the robotaxis could be in for a bumpy ride BY HANNAH METZGER 12 PAINT THE TOWN Artists took to brick and concrete canvases around Denver this year. BY KRISTEN FIORE 17 LISTEN UP Malinche Audio Bar brings the party to Platte Street. BY MOLLY MARTIN 19 HARD TIMES Destiny Bond is feeling The Love. BY ZACHARY VISCONTI 12 Culture 17 Cafe 19 Music CONCERTS/CLUBS ................................... 20 25 Marijuana CANNABIS CALENDAR ............................ 26 HIGH NOTES ............................................. XX VOLUME 49 NUMBER 7 OCTOBER 16-22, 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 Bennito L. 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KELTY, OCTOBER 9 A H E L P I N G H A N D O U T It didn’t work when Denver’s Road Home put in those silly parking meters and the signs in Aurora were even worse. No one panhandling at your car window cares if you say you already donated to some group actually helping people who are homeless. These people are only helping themselves. Joe O’Malley Denver Excellent reporting. The human condi- tion makes it very diffi cult to sometimes be- come engaged and even harder to overcome hardships without consistency of positive solutions and out-of-the-collection-box insights. Aurora seems as though it is at a crossroads of being negatively labeled at panhandling stoplights and re-evaluating the frailties and the human casualties of our society. Bobbie Et Denver “RUN UNTIL YOU’RE CAUGHT,” HANNAH METZGER, OCTOBER 2 O N T H E R U N Great reporting and fun writing by Han- nah Metzger in her piece about Joshua Rodriguez. If only all the other candidates for Colorado governor were as interesting. Marly Hunter Denver Politics is the one place that a criminal record is more like a feather in your cap than a stain on your resume. Tim Vargo Arvada So he had to be accountable. Too bad these politicians don’t. Jeff Williams Westminster Colorado’s own George Santos. Michael Lustig Denver LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, OCTOBER 2 ‘ F A X C H E C K I want to second the sentiments that Tom Boylan expressed in his letter about Colfax construction. The project managers should have anticipated what this would do to the businesses along that very unique stretch. It is a shame that we are going to lose so many along the way. I can’t imagine what will still be left when the project is fi nished. Shel Adams Denver After seeing numerous articles and let- ters about the construction on Colfax, I would like to state my opinion. I am an ac- tive user of transit and know many people working on this project who directly work with infrastructure-related work. I would like to lay out the benefi ts of this project quickly, whether a more walkable and dense corridor or reduced congestion and higher transit usage. Understandably, businesses have a right to be frustrated, but to what extent? Are we going to act as though there wasn’t a period of thirty to forty years of urban renewal that completely destroyed entire parts of downtown for car infrastructure, or how nu- merous businesses come and go throughout the area seemingly daily? It’s easy to point to this as a Colfax issue, but in reality, this issue is metrowide. Only a small handful of businesses have actually gone under during construction, with multiple new businesses setting up shop along the street and oth- ers already expressing excitement over the improvements. Adding an alternative and effi cient mode of transport is not ruining the city, but improving it. Colfax has been a corridor in need of improvements for decades, be- ing in utter ruin for far too long. I think it is important to understand the massive benefi ts of this improvement and to stop throwing insults at the city for putting genuine effort into fi xing a corridor that was long seen as “the place not to go in Denver.” (Trust me, it was.) Matt R. Denver
