ASPEN — At Belly Up, Aspen’s largest and busiest live-music bar, drinks have begun disappearing.
Belly Up bartenders have been instructed to discard drinks left unattended on the bar by customers who wander off or head to the dance floor.
In reports of lost nights reminiscent of the movie “The Hangover,” about a dozen people around Aspen and Snowmass have reported they think “roofies” — the street name for the so-called date-rape drug Rohypnol — have been slipped into their beverages at parties and in bars.
So now places like Belly Up are taking steps to prevent anyone from having access to an unattended drink.
People who believe they have been victims of the amnesia-inducing drug in the Aspen area have awakened in strange places such as a barn, a stranger’s snowbank and a detox center in another town. They have no memory of how they got there. The victims have suffered frostbite, bruises, even a broken nose with no idea how those injuries happened.
“They are waking up in a fog, and they have lost time,” said Aspen police Sgt. Dan Davis. “They think they have been drugged.”
None of the recent cases of suspected drugging has involved sexual assaults, as was the case with a roofie incident in Aspen a year ago. The recent roofie reports came from men and women. There are no apparent motives. They may have been drugged simply for someone’s amusement.
In “The Hangover,” roofies are used for amusement. Four men go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party and wake up in a trashed hotel suite with a tiger, a chicken, a baby, a missing tooth, a missing groom and no memories of what happened. They initially think they have gotten drunker than they ever thought possible. They learn later that their drinks were drugged.
Because there is no motive in the Aspen cases, some question whether people might be drinking themselves into stupors.
“We wonder why someone would want to drug them,” said Snowmass Village Police Chief Art Smythe. “But the individuals involved in these incidents certainly believe it was more than alcohol.”
Rohypnol is similar to central nervous system depressants such as Valium but is 10 times stronger. The drug is used in Europe, South America and Mexico as a pre-anesthetic or a treatment for insomnia. The problem for authorities trying to prove roofie cases is that the drug is very hard to detect once a suspected victim has urinated.
Many suspected victims don’t make police reports until days or weeks later because they have such a hole in their memories when they wake up.
Even with the lack of proof, law enforcement officials, fearful residents and bar owners around Aspen are concerned enough to take extra education and prevention steps.
Aspen police are working on a website where suspected roofie incidents can be reported. They have set up a new report code so the incidents can quickly be linked and counted. They are asking friends to call law enforcement if they see friends behaving in a way that goes beyond normal drunkenness.
Response, an Aspen agency that deals with domestic violence, is going to start distributing “Be Aware” bar napkins warning drinkers to watch their beverages. The group also plans an educational seminar in conjunction with law enforcement.
Michael Goldberg, the owner of Belly Up, said he believes drugging really is happening, especially during very busy times in Aspen like the holidays and the upcoming X Games. At such times, he said, it can be tough to prevent.
“If someone is dead-set on roofing someone,” he said, “they are going to find a way to do that.”
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com
