Denver’s superb park system is the city’s most cherished amenity. Scattered around the city, with a century of growth in stately trees, lush foliage and inviting lakes, the parks’ abundance makes us forget that these lands were once unending prairies of waving grass. They are the magical places to which we head when we want to escape city crowds and hubbub, to be surrounded by natural beauty or to recreate. Their use is for all the people, all the time.
That’s why it’s so puzzling – and aggravating – that the park administration persists in trying to introduce more alcohol in the parks, particularly in neighborhood parks. It started in July 2005, with public hearings regarding loosening restrictions on alcohol for up to 38 city parks. Only 3.2 beer was permitted in parks, and permits could be issued for four special-events facilities for serving alcohol at weddings and similar gatherings.. Sale of alcoholic beverages was allowed only for non-profit events in the three Downtown Events Areas: Civic Center, Skyline Park and Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The 2005 proposal would have added four more parks to the above trio, and another 14 parks where special permits would be required.
Neighborhood groups, individual citizens and representatives from the Denver Police Department testified against more booze, and the list was whittled to six parks. The parks department decided to allow 3.2 beer to be served to race and walk participants. (Only one event since then has requested to do so.) There definitely is no big demand.
This March, the parks department proposed that at race/walk events, 6 percent beer, wine and champagne could be sold to participants and the general public. A special permit would be needed, an area fenced off and security added.
At a public hearing, the Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation (which represents more than 70 groups in Denver) and other citizens again opposed any change. They charged that introducing alcohol resulted in more litter and disruptive behavior, diminished the parks’ serenity and family appeal. The proposal was reduced to permitting the sale of 6 percent beer, limiting sales to two events a season at six designated race/walk parks.
I asked Kim Bailey, manager of Denver Parks and Recreation, that since both proposals had significant public opposition, why did they keep getting reintroduced? She said the new proposal was to meet state liquor laws, “correcting” a mistake in the two-year-old policy. Why would correcting an error mean adding more alcohol venues?
We had more agreement on the city’s parkways, 30 miles of roadways lined with handsome, extra-wide sweeps of lawn and trees. Sixteen parkways and 15 historic parks were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, the first in the nation to attain this prestigious listing.
Originally the city maintained parkways, providing water, mowing, and caring for the trees. But gradually most homeowners undertook the task – and there’s been an insidious erosion of the parkways, with a fence here, a wall there, sneakily intruding into the public space.
“I’ve really been surprised that the rules protecting parkways have not been more firmly enforced,” Bailey said.
The East Fourth Avenue parkway, a single block between Gilpin and Williams streets, is an example. Last summer, the parks department said it would no longer provide water for such parkways. The homeowner at the Gilpin end said he wouldn’t water if he couldn’t utilize the parkway space. He proposed adding a walkway – which is now a grand entrance, with large flowerbeds and lights, and totally resodded. It’s now that home’s impressive “front yard,” adding much to the property value.
That’s one glaring example of the necessity of setting an easily understood and enforceable policy for such irreplaceable city properties. The rules should not be so lax that they can be interpreted in a multitude of ways whenever there is a new city manager.
Bailey hopes to have a new policy crafted within the next two years. That process must be totally open, inclusive, and adhere to both historical precedents and what citizens want today to protect these extraordinary assets. Sadly, that’s not been the track record of the parks department in recent years.
Joanne Ditmer’s column on environmental and urban issues for The Post began in 1962 and now appears once a month.
