Englewood – Mike Mahaney said he would fight city hall to keep an “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” mural at his South Broadway tobacco shop.
On Wednesday, he did just that. In front of Municipal Judge Vincent Atencio, Mahaney entered a plea of not guilty to three citations.
Actually, the manager of Mahaney’s shop, Headed West, was cited. But that technicality will be cleared up at a pretrial conference with the city attorney next month.
Mahaney still vows to go to trial, even though he faces a potential year in jail and $1,000 in fines for the mural some think promotes drug use.
“I’m still going to fight it until they make me paint over it,” Mahaney said after court.
Mahaney was told he had to get rid of the mural – showing Alice, a hookah- smoking caterpillar and a white rabbit that initially was popping a pill. The pill has since been painted out.
But the city cited him anyway because the mural falls under the signage category of the city code and was so big that it must be taken down.
Deputy City Manager Mike Flaherty on Wednesday said that nothing, from the city’s perspective, has changed.
He said Mahaney has options other than having the issue decided in court. Those include going before city boards to ask for a variance or an interpretation of the code.
Mahaney says he had the mural painted because taggers would paint graffiti on the walls of his shop.
But since the mural went up in April, no graffiti has shown up at Headed West.
He says he has 1,000 signatures from people who want the city to allow him to keep the mural.
City Councilwoman Laurett Barrentine, who supports retaining the mural, said she studied the issue and found that other cities throughout the country have lost in similar cases.
“This man paid for it, and it’s on his building,” she said.
Staff writer Carlos Illescas can be reached at 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com.
