Denver took seriously its role as the Big Apple of the High Plains on New Year’s Eve.
Two fireworks shows, one for the kids at 9 p.m. and one at midnight to ring in the new year, draw tens of thousands downtown each New Year’s Eve, and by dusk the ribbon of traffic flowing into downtown was as solid as the one typically leaving at quitting time.
Revelers came for champagne, fireworks, a kiss for luck at midnight and the annual sing-along “Auld Lang Syne,” toasting the times past and those to come.
This year, the holiday brought more than a flip of the calendar and a few January mistakes on the checkbook dateline; we go from speaking about “ohs” — as in oh-8 and oh-9 — to the decade the will bring the teens.
And there was a positive economic omen to celebrate as well, as downtown hotels were booked and festivities took shape at about 300 ballrooms, barrooms and other public venues in the Mile High City’s celebratory epicenter, according to the Downtown Denver Partnership.
Fireworks themed “Winter in the City” delighted the throng on the 16th Street Mall.
Organizers aim Denver’s observance at a family-oriented crowd, staging costumed characters, magicians, balloon artists, stilt walkers and other entertainers along the pedestrian mall.
Downtown police weren’t expecting trouble, but they weren’t taking chances, either.
“We want people to come on downtown and have a good time,” police spokesman Sonny Jackson said Thursday afternoon. “But we want them to celebrate in a way that’s safe, that they don’t drink too much and they’re not a nuisance to other people.”
He would not say how many extra patrol and undercover officers would be among the revelers, but he said “saturation patrols” would be monitoring potential drunken drivers leaving bar districts.
Jackson said statistically, New Year’s Eve is one of downtown’s better behaved events, probably because people expect the extra police presence and, more than a typical summer weekend, they make transportation plans to get home.
RTD offered free bus and light rail service until 6 a.m. Friday.
In Denver County last New Year’s, 87 people were popped for DUI, up from 73 the year before, according to the state Department of Transportation.
Statewide, there were 578 drunken-driving arrests during the New Year’s weekend last year, compared to 473 the year before.
By comparison, St. Patrick’s Day netted 668 drunken-driving arrests this year.
More bizarre but just as fatal: gunfire to ring in the new year.
Police sent out a warning Thursday afternoon to remind people who celebrate the new year with gunfire that it’s a serious crime, and at the very least could net the offender a $999 fine and up to a year in jail.
Two years ago, however, it was more costly, when a west Denver family lost two beloved family members. A shot killed 47-year-old Becky Yanez and her 11-year-old niece, Angelica Martinez, as a dozen family members gathered to celebrate along Lakewood Gulch.
A lone .44-caliber round fired by a stranger 280 yards away caused the tragedy and sent 26- year-old Pedro Cortez to prison on a 10-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
