Not two weeks ago, the Colorado Rockies were on top of the world, pulling their Lower Downtown neighborhood right up there with them. Now, as Denver police hunt a man suspected of spraying bullets down a busy LoDo street Sunday morning – killing one and injuring six – many are wondering whether the area’s marquee gathering spot is safe.
“I find it odd that this highly commercialized area of Denver is so up and down,” said Nathan Fitzgerald, 32, of Highlands Ranch. “One week there’s the World Series with tens of thousands of people down there, but the next, people are being shot en masse.”
As questions arise about just how safe LoDo is and whether the neighborhood has more bars than it can handle, police and city officials insist the area is far from a danger zone.
“I think it’s very safe,” said Denver police Cmdr. Deborah Dilley. Dilley oversees District 6, which encompasses LoDo. Crime there is actually down the first nine months of this year from last year, she said.
And when compared with other areas, LoDo’s crime rates aren’t even in Denver’s top 10.
“We have thousands and thousands of people who come into downtown to work during the day or play at night, and they do so very safely,” Dilley said.
Jessica St. John, marketing director for The Lure and Below, two clubs in LoDo’s “nightclubby” area west of 16th, said she seldom sees trouble downtown but knows the combination of alcohol and crowds is “like a bomb waiting to go off.”
But no such trouble erupted last month, despite crowds drawn over one weekend by the Broncos, the Avalanche, the Rockies, a Genesis concert, Octoberfest, the Columbus Day parade and Race for the Cure, said neighborhood leader Simone Howell Raarup, executive director of LoDo District Inc.
“What happened was very tragic and very frightening,” she said of the Sunday shooting outside Hush nightclub. “At the same time, there are close to 70 bars and restaurants here, and every night of the year people come down here and nothing goes wrong.”
More clubs, crowds
Many LoDo regulars argue that shootings elsewhere get scant attention. But blood running in the streets of LoDo – that’s news.
“When it happens in LoDo, people start freaking out a little bit,” said Angela Merritt, 39, of Federal Heights.
But the area has become more crowded with nightspots.
“I don’t think LoDo is any less safe now than it was eight years ago, but you do have more bars, and at 2 in the morning there’s a lot of people on the streets, said Will Coleman, owner of the Purple Martini.
Coleman said that when the Purple Martini was at 15th and Market streets- it has since moved to the Tabor Center – only a few bars were nearby.
“Now you have Le Rouge, Mynt, Monarck, Hush, Spill, Below, Pi, 5 Degrees, Tryst, the Front Porch, Crave and others,” he said. “And all in the last three to four years.”
A few of those clubs draw a rowdy clientele, some say.
One former manager of a LoDo restaurant said he saw that happen outside one club this summer.
“Every Friday and Saturday, at 1:30 or 2 when they let out, there’d be a brawl,” said the former manager, who didn’t want his name used because he did not have the owner’s permission to speak publicly.
“It created an extremely unsafe environment for my staff. We’re trying to go home and we can’t because we’re too scared to exit the building,” he said.
Rush hour at 2 a.m.
Whether new clubs are changing the atmosphere or not, a lot of people who live there think LoDo has more than enough bars, said Judy Montero, a Denver city councilwoman whose 9th District includes LoDo.
“The neighborhood feels they’re at the point of saturation, which they have felt for several years,” she said.
A couple of years ago, Mayor John Hickenlooper put together a task force to examine public safety in LoDo. From that effort came changes to rules governing how neighbors can fight new or transferring liquor licenses, Montero said.
At the same time, David Clamage, who owned Rock Island bar, proposed allowing clubs to stay open after the 2 a.m. cutoff the state has set for serving alcohol.
“If you allow dancing to continue for an hour or so, then people dribble out instead of being pushed out all at once at 2 a.m.,” he said.
The fatality in Sunday’s shooting, Theodore “Ted” Padilla, 25, was shot just after 2 a.m. as he and others left Hush after closing.
Staying open past 2 a.m. also would relieve congestion on the sidewalks and in the streets, said Clamage, who closed his bar a year ago.
“At 2 a.m., I had 500 people standing on the curb outside exchanging phone numbers and deciding where to go have breakfast,” he said. “In any reasonable weather, at 2 a.m., the primary exit corridors down here are like rush hour.”
Safety essential
The proposal got nowhere, partly because many bar owners weren’t excited about paying staff for an extra hour, while they couldn’t sell drinks, Montero said.
“But if the bar owners would agree, I don’t think it would hurt to revisit it,” she said.
Meanwhile, Dilley, the District 6 police commander, has asked off-duty officers who work in LoDo to stay until 2:30 a.m. and to be a visible presence outside as bars close.
It is too soon to know whether recent shootings will hurt LoDo businesses.
But with the Democratic National Convention on the 2008 calendar – and some 35,000 coming to town – community leaders agree it’s imperative to keep downtown safe.
So do LoDo patrons.
“Basically, I’ve got money to spend and a choice to make,” Fitzgerald said.
“Do I spend it where people get shot every couple months, or entertain myself, family and friends in a place I don’t read about in the paper every couple of weeks?”
Karen Augé: 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com
