Charlie Drayer
Audio By Carbonatix
El Mecca Sports Bar is at risk of losing its business license because of alleged prostitution. A Denver Police Department notice on the door of the bar at 2915 West Mississippi Avenue notes that the “property has been identified as a public nuisance.”
An undercover investigation by the Denver Police Department into possible prostitution at the bar, formerly known as Club Dubai (and no relation to Mecca Tavern on Federal), led to the arrest of one woman at the club in September, according to a February 6 show-cause order from the Denver Department of Licensing & Consumer Protection.
The department sent the bar and Manuel Mercado Ibarra, identified as responsible for the business, the order requiring a virtual hearing on March 20 to defend the license. Neither Mercado Ibarra nor anyone else at the bar could be reached for comment.
According to the show-cause order, a DPD human trafficking unit investigated the business in October 2024 after an anonymous tip to the Department of Revenue about “prostitution, unlawful liquor activity and illicit narcotics sales.”
The order notes that the investigators “witnessed young girls who were working for the bar offering male customers off-premise bottle service. The girls would leave the premises with customers, be dropped off at the bar by the customers later in the night and be paid for the night by the bar manager.”
The order also details a flirt-and-upcharge scheme where women at the bar would charge $20 for a beer and their company.
A DPD vice unit followed up last August with a sting. An undercover officer reported that a “young female” walked up to his car while he was outside El Mecca and offered $300 to “culear,” a Spanish sex term. After she was told she was talking to a cop, she said she made about $1,400 week through another scheme where females resell liquor to customers inside the bar.
In September, two undercover officers went to the business; according to the order, each was approached by a woman who said that for $20, they could get a beer and the woman’s company. The order doesn’t clarify whether the women identified themselves as employees of the bar, but they each took the $20 to the bartender to pay for a $6 beer.
Later, a woman walked up to one of the officers and offered him $500 for sex. She was arrested, and subsequently told officers that she worked at El Mecca, upcharging for beers. However, she denied that the bar owners knew anything about prostitution on-site.
An undercover female DPD officer then went to the bar to ask about getting a job. A bartender told her she could “fichar,” which typically means to clock in or out for work but also describes a setup at bars in the U.S. and Latin America where customers pay a woman to flirt and have a beer with them. The order notes that “it can also be used as a synonym for ‘prostitute.'”
According to the order, a business can have its license revoked for deciding “knowingly to grant or permit the use of such facility for the purpose of prostitution.” Other violations cited in the order include the business not having “good moral character” and “does not warrant the confidence…that the license will be lawfully operated.”
