Police and neighborhood leaders have long predicted that an oversaturation of nightclubs downtown just south of Colfax Avenue could lead to the type of violence that claimed the life of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams.
Nightclub impresario Regas Christou, whose family owns at least six venues in the vicinity, has put the area on Denver’s entertainment map, labeling it SoCo and calling it a hipper LoDo. Prince once headlined a concert at a Christou establishment, and professional basketball players made Christou’s clubs a destination when Denver hosted the NBA All-Star Game in 2005.
But court documents, testimony and interviews show police have concerns that the clubs there, especially Christou’s, are taxing resources and making it harder for them to keep the city safe.
The fact that Williams spent his last night partying at one of Christou’s establishments, and that police say a clash outside the venue may have contributed to the football player’s slaying, has only emboldened the critics.
“We had a meeting with a bail bondsmen, and he said he moved to that location because he was getting so much business from those clubs,” said Margerie Hicks, a past president of the Golden Triangle Association, which abuts the growing entertainment district.
Christou, 54, who was born in Cyprus, has for years had a tense relationship with city officials. As far back as 1995, then-police Capt. Gerry Whitman was raising concerns. Back then, Whitman sought to restrict a nightclub run by Christou’s nephew, Anthanasios Lemonidis, after three women were hit by a car along Broadway near one of his nightclubs, tying up 17 officers.
After Whitman became chief, he singled out Christou’s clubs as one of the few where he won’t allow police officers to provide off-duty security.
“He lost the right to hire any police,” Whitman said. “It’s not a right. It’s probably a matter of the violence in his clubs.”
Whitman said that during the NBA All-Star week in 2005, Christou screamed at one city meeting that he needed off-duty police for security.
“All I do is say, ‘Have him write up a proposal that will ease my concerns,’ and he never does that,” Whitman said.
“Several deaths down there”
Police Cmdr. Deborah Dilley, who runs the police station that patrols downtown, testified in March against Christou’s efforts to obtain a new nightclub license. It was the first time she had ever testified against a liquor-license request.
“I will tell you there have been increasingly more and more problems in the SoCo area over the last year and a half or so,” Dilley said in a recent interview. “There have been several deaths down there associated with his clubs.”
While LoDo has its own challenges, Dilley said the clubs Christou runs in the SoCo area are especially vexing because they are so large. The area is home to 21 nightclubs, but Christou’s are the biggest and most prominent.
When she testified in March, Dilley said that in the past 10 years, the number of liquor licenses in the city had grown from 800 to 1,400 without a corresponding increase in police. She added that Christou’s bars – and others clustered in the burgeoning entertainment district south of Colfax Avenue along Broadway and Lincoln Street – pose special challenges.
“Crimes have happened in the establishments themselves,” Dilley said. “Crimes have happened outside the establishments that I absolutely directly target to patrons who have been inside the bars.”
From December 2004 to November 2005, police made 7,214 arrests in SoCo and the surrounding area and had to respond to 34,652 calls for service, statistics show.
Christou, who first got his start in Denver working for Pete’s Kitchen on East Colfax Avenue, said he’s being singled out unfairly for criticism. He said that during his 25 years in the nightclub business, he has had a few isolated incidents despite having millions of people pour through his venues.
“People are getting shot at all the time,” he said. “There is nothing I could have done to prevent that. Outside the club, how can I control that?”
He added that blaming him for Williams’ death is as preposterous as blaming the Broncos for the death because they drafted him.
“If they wouldn’t have brought him to Denver, he wouldn’t have gotten shot,” he said. “I mean babies are even getting killed these days. Society’s to blame. It’s your fault. It’s my fault. It’s all our fault.”
He added: “What am I supposed to do? Not let black people in my clubs?”
In past testimony, Christou has said he holds a master’s degree in international relations and once worked for the United Nations.
“He’s a smart businessman”
His critics say that although he says he’s schooled in worldly politics, his businesses hurt the local streets of Denver.
“He’s a smart businessman, who’s willing to push the envelope all the way,” said Kathi Anderson, president of the Unsinkables, which does citizen patrols in the Capitol Hill area. “I have a problem with what he does to the neighborhoods, but he’s built an empire here.”
She said she still marvels at how Christou pledged to city officials in the 1990s that the Funky Buddha Lounge would cater to an upscale downtown lunch crowd, but then operated it as a loud nightclub.
Christou testified he tried to run it as a lunchtime venue but switched to a nightclub because of a lack of business.
Files at the city’s Excise and Licensing Department show that at least on one occasion a politician interceded on behalf of a venue with ties to Christou.
In 2002, then-Denver Councilman Ed Thomas wrote a letter to the then-director of excise and licensing, Helen Gonzales, complaining that city officials were subjecting the Funky Buddha to “unreasonably burdensome” regulations involving hours of operation.
But in March 2006, Councilwoman Jeanne Robb opposed Christou’s efforts to get a license for another club. In the end, the current director of excise and licensing, Stephanie O’Malley, denied Christou’s application, saying Christou didn’t prove the area needed another club.
Karen Landers-Zeile, who lives in the nearby Golden Triangle area, was among those fighting the new club. She said that last Halloween, a friend of hers visited the area and was beaten by someone leaving one of the nearby clubs. She was not sure whether the club was owned by Christou. Her friend lost two teeth and required treatment at a hospital.
“I’m not entirely surprised about the violence emanating from that area,” she said.
Clubs with ties to Christou have seen violence. Last January, his brother, Christakes, , was arrested after shooting a burglar at the Funky Buddha along Lincoln Street after the bar closed. He eventually pleaded to the lesser charge of tampering with evidence. In 1996, two off-duty police officers fatally shot Jeff Truax outside Christou’s 1082 Club, now Vinyl, which also is currently owned by Christou’s sister Maria, who in city filings said she once operated the city’s of Denver’s retirement system.
In 2001, police reported that at Vinyl, 1082 Broadway, a patron was beaten in the face by two assailants while dancing. The victim told police that when he reported the incident to the club’s bouncers, they ignored it and refused to call an ambulance or police.
Then when a manager asked the bouncers what had occurred, they told him that the victim had fallen. The victim told police he had to be taken to a hospital by a taxi.
Staff writer Christopher N. Osher can be reached at 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com.
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