About a dozen residents living in the Denver DIY space Rhinoceropolis by the Denver Police Department on Thursday night after the Denver Fire Department found “numerous serious fire code violations.”
The inspection occurred in the wake of the Dec. 2 fire that killed 36 people at the Oakland, Calif. warehouse DIY space Ghost Ship.
In a release, RiNo Art District president Jamie Licko stated that the organization had no prior knowledge of the inspection, calling it a “rash” directive issued by the Deputy Chief of Police.
Licko voiced support for the artist community that call RiNo home, while conceding that Rhinoceropolis itself will likely no longer be able to house artists and states that the organization respects “both the zoning code and the rights of the property owner on that particular matter.”
“(T)his event brings to the fore a bigger conversation about the need for affordable, flexible creative space within the City of Denver, and RiNo, for artists,” Licko continued in the release. “Rather quietly, the RiNo Art District, Business Improvement District and General Improvement District have been working on a number of initiatives to this end, even as we recognize the changing, challenging dynamics happening here. It’s time to be louder. It’s time to be bolder.”
The release does not address the fate of other RiNo DIY spaces or a specific plan of action beyond reviewing zoning of industrial spaces in RiNo “to identify how we can make amendments to allow for utilizing these affordable spaces as live/work places for our artist community in a safe way.”
We’ve reached out to Licko for further comment.
