Medical marijuana dispensaries will soon need papers

The medical marijuana industry in Denver has already been compared to the wild, wild West — but those land offices where miners and homesteaders competed to file claims may look mild compared to the Wellington E. Webb building next week, when the city starts accepting medical marijuana dispensary licenses on…

Jason Bosch: A MasterMind takes his show on the road

Jason Bosch is a MasterMind, one of those artistic adventurers not just exploring the political/cultural landscape of this town, but changing it. For his efforts, he was honored with a 2009 MasterMind award. And soon the founder of ArgusFest will be taking his show on the road, working with the…

Body scanning at DIA: There’s no protection against bad taste!

“You’re my favorite,” the TSA worker told me earlier this morning as I presented my carefully sorted bins — computer in its own container, liquids tucked into the appropriate size bag (no big, but my almost empty, toothpaste tube, was confiscated last trip), shoes and coat — and watched them…

Chipotle’s Steve Ells on Oprah today

From the moment it opened at 1644 East Evans Avenue, close by the University of Denver, Chipotle Mexican Grill a hip storefront joint that served giant burritos, was a giant hit. Three years later, the homegrown chain had three Denver locations — and a notion of going national, as Westword…

Wake-Up Call: Toyota keeps Prius pedal to the metal

Toyota has recalled 2.3 million vehicles and halted production on eight of its models, including the Camry and Corolla. But Toyota’s “stop sale” order does not involve the Prius. And that could be a problem, since numerous owners of that model have complained about mysterious — and sometimes deadly– acceleration,…

Update on Sheehan replacement

“You should have filled Jason’s spot before letting him go to Seattle,” one disgruntled reader wrote in the comments section after “Pot Luck,” William Breathes’s piece on 8 Rivers. “This review was not worth reading. What a disappointment.” First things first: Like Juliet Wittman’s article on The Kitchen, the 8…

Wake-Up Call: Baby Jesus says goodbye

Last night, for the first time in eight weeks, the garish holiday lighting of the Denver City and County Building was not my night-light. That’s because the city had finally flicked the switch, turning off the display at City Hall and packing up everything on the steps: Rudolph and his…

Wake-Up Call: Naptime in a land called Colorado

Governor Bill Ritter will celebrate Colorado Tourism Day this afternoon at the State Capitol, and there’s real reason to celebrate: The embarrassingly awful, Joan Rivers-ish “Let’s Talk Colorado” campaign has disappeared almost entirely, with just a few “Let’s Talk Colorado with the Locals Who Love It” videos buried on the…

Wake-Up Call: The cure for the common code

“Have a voice,” urges the web site for Denver’s new zoning code, which has just been given its first major overhaul in 53 years. “Attend a meeting.” And that’s a good idea — because nowhere on the very elaborate, informative site can Denverites actually voice their thoughts about the code…

Wake-Up Call: Colorado Legislature goes to pot

The Colorado Legislature officially went to pot yesterday, when Senator Chris Romer finally introduced what remains of his medical-marijuana proposal: Senate Bill 109, which would put a strict lid on the relationship between a doctor and a would-be medical marijuana patient. The Colorado health department was at the Capitol, too,…

Wake-Up Call: Los Angeles puts a lid on medical marijuana dispensaries

“We don’t want to become another Los Angeles,” Denver city councilman Charlie Brown said after touring that city’s pot dispensaries, which outnumbered L.A.’s Starbucks outlets, in urging his fellow councilmembers to come up with some regulations for Denver’s booming medical marijuana industry. Mission accomplished. Although L.A.’s city council had been…

Dine out and help out Haiti

The horrors of Haiti hit close to home for Mary Nguyen, owner of Parallel 17: Her husband, Raphael Jouvenat, is from there. “Haiti has always been a poor country; a country with political turmoil and limited resources neglected by most of the world,” she writes. “However, it is the place…

Wake-Up Call: Return to Haiti

Dan Jeune chose the most unlikely place to look for people who wanted to help Haiti: the bars of LoDo. Luke Turf watched Jeune, a native of Haiti whose father is a minister, recruit among the hat boys and frat boys, and then followed Jeune and the group he’d gathered…

Rosa Linda’s Mexican Cafe turns 25

One day back in 1985, one of the Westword artists who lived at the edge of Highland — we called it Barbaria then — called with a tip about a great storefront burrito at this new place, Rosa Linda’s. He was right, and we quickly became lifetime fans of the…

Wake-Up Call: MLK Day’s march of history

The country’s largest parade in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. will kick off this morning in Denver, Colorado, a mid-sized city with a small black population, but a big record of fighting for equality. Wilma Webb, then a state legislator, was instrumental in pushing to make MLK Day a…

Wake-Up Call: Aspen’s “Big Money” mess

Forget Charlie Sheen. The biggest scandal in Aspen these days involves Dan Sheridan, a 44-year-old singer musician who’s lived in that mountain town more than twenty years, doesn’t like some of the changes he’s seen, and describes them very eloquently in his song “Big Money.” But while Sheridan croons that…

Wake-Up Call: The Hick Up hiccup

Worried about who’ll be running Denver while John Hickenlooper is running for governor? Fear not: councilmember-at-large Doug Linkhart (who’s rumored to be taking a look at running for mayor himself) is on the job, as he explains in his latest e-mail blast, “Hick Up! Not a Problem.” Which ends with…

Rise and shine at the Denver Biscuit Company

First Atomic Cowboy started serving pizza, thanks to the addition of Fat Sully’s. Now it has fresh biscuits and sausage gravy (made fresh daily), along with other Southern breakfast comfort-food items, courtesy of the Denver Biscuit Company, which just opened inside the Bluebird District hangout at 3237 East Colfax Avenue…

Now you can get lit at the Gaslamp

On the 1400 block of Market, the Ruth’s Chris space is still dark and the former home of Buca di Beppo is slated to become a medical marijuana dispensary — but Gaslamp got the lights on this past weekend. Gaslamp is owned by Greg Gallagher, who also owns the Front…