AURORA — On Wednesday evenings at the edge of a wide parking lot in Aurora, there is a forest green pop-up tent with five large, scraped-up coolers stacked nearby. The coolers hold 27 bags of fresh produce, harvested that morning at Switch Gears Farm in Longmont. 

The arugula gets picked first, Vanita Patel, co-founder and co-owner of Switch Gears explained. The farmers chop the spicy leaves down early in the morning while the air is still cool, soak them in cold water for an hour then spin them dry, rinse again and bag it all up. The potatoes and shallots are pulled straight out of the ground and thrown into the bags — the dirt on their skin helps them keep fresh longer. There are heirloom tomatoes and two shades of beets. There are also a couple of plump, round Baingan eggplants that Patel is especially proud of. It took her four years to find the seeds, she said.

“We take our varietals very seriously,” she told a group of stakeholders and policymakers who were circled up next to the tent Wednesday, including state Sen. Rhonda Fields and a district leader from U.S. Rep. Jason Crow’s office.

The bags of produce were to be handed out during a two-hour window to people enrolled in the Women, Infants and Children federal food assistance program. That produce is paid for by Nourish Colorado, a food equity and advocacy group, using funds from the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, known as the LFPA. 

These funds have bolstered local agriculture and supported low-cost food distribution for the past three years, but they’re about to run out with no replacement in sight. And that’s why the government workers were gathered in the Aurora parking lot, to hear from Nourish and the farmers about what comes next. 

What is the LFPA?

The LFPA is a pandemic-era relief program overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nationally, the program has issued more than $900 million to state governments, tribes and territories for food banks, pantries and distribution sites to buy produce from local farmers.

Colorado was one of the first states to receive funding, and over the past three years has received and distributed close to $10 million in LFPA funds. The state has passed the money on to 35 grantees in the food supply chain.

Two things set the LFPA apart from other food security programs. First, its direct support of local agriculture. Grantees are required to purchase food from producers within 400 miles of the distribution site. 

Second, the funds are intended to support “socially disadvantaged producers,” which, according to the USDA, includes veterans, women, people of color and people with disabilities, among other groups.

According to the Colorado Department of Human Services, of the 220 producers who sold to LFPA grantees, 147 of them, or 67%, are considered “socially disadvantaged.”

The middle section

That 67% includes Patel, the Switch Gears farmer. Or, in her words, “I check a lot of the boxes, in terms of diversity.” 

One thing that Patel thinks needs to be reconciled between the LFPA grantees, like food banks, and the small, “socially disadvantaged” farmers is that these farms don’t always have the resources to provide cheap food to a large community in need.

“I can’t sell these boxes for $10 or $15. There is already so little profit being made,” she said. “But when food banks get these grants, there’s this comparison to big farms. They can give much more produce, and it’s like, ‘yes, because they’ve been in Colorado for 100 years, and they own their land, and they own their water rights.’”

The ability to scale doesn’t just require more land, it also requires equipment and infrastructure. Things like cold storage, packaging facilities and delivery vans.

“I don’t need my own delivery van,” Patel clarified. She thinks there’s a way for organizations and small farmers to collaborate when it comes to these improvements.

“Up in Boulder County, we’ll literally text each other, ‘storm’s coming your way,’ because we can see each others’ properties,” she said. “If I had access to a delivery van, or cold storage I could share it with other farmers. That would be so much better.”

This sentiment was echoed by Maggie Kinneberg, a researcher for the Donnell-Kay Foundation, a nonprofit that supports funding for food systems work. An area that is overlooked — in food systems in general, not limited to LFPA recipients — is what she calls the “middle” segment of a farm-to-fork journey.

“I think there’s a friction point not just for new farms, but also for those that are established and looking to scale, that they don’t have access to infrastructure,”  Kinneberg said. “And when I say infrastructure, I mean buildings and equipment, but I also mean some of the technical systems like inventory management, accounting, HR, some of those basic things that you need to run a functioning business.”

Two different models

Although the reporting process is standardized by the USDA — that is, reporting who and what the funds are spent on — pretty much everything else is up to the states and their grantees.

Colorado decided to use an open application system, inviting food producers and distributors to apply for the nearly $10 million to spend directly on food during three rounds of funding.

Nourish Colorado worked with their partner distributors, places like the East Denver Food Hub, to apply for separate grants, stretching the money further and using the established sites.

Another recipient, Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado, created an entirely new system to distribute nearly $1.8 million in LFPA funds.

Now in its 50th year, Care and Share has the traditional food bank model down pat. They buy in bulk from larger farms, like Yoder Family Farms in Trinidad, truck the food to one of three distribution sites, sort it, then ship it out to 293 food bank partners.

But with the LFPA’s emphasis on small, socially disadvantaged farms, Care and Share needed a way to buy food in smaller quantities from the often isolated farms around southern Colorado.

So they took the distribution centers out of the equation. Instead, they gave local food bank partners a budget to spend at the selected farms. 

For example, if Care and Share had $50,000 in LFPA funds for “Farm A” and there are five local food bank partners in that area, then each food bank will have $10,000 to spend on food at that specific farm, Nate Springer, president and CEO of Care and Share, explained. 

Not only does this cut down on infrastructure and transportation needs, but it also gives the food banks autonomy to decide which foods are culturally relevant to their communities.

“We work from Monument to New Mexico, and from Utah to Kansas. There is a lot of diversity in that area,” Springer said. “So when we find these farmers, I don’t want it to be up to Care and Share to figure out what our partners (the food banks) need. They know better than we do.”

What happens next

When and whether the LFPA funds continue depends on how the election shakes out in November, and what the House and Senate Agriculture committees look like (Colorado Rep. Yadira Caraveo serves on the House committee, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet serves on the Senate committee), and who the Secretary of Agriculture is in January, said Wendy Moschetti, executive director of Nourish Colorado. “There’s lots of different depends in there,” she said. 

The biggest “depend” of all is whether Congress is able to pass the updated farm bill, a bill that sets agriculture and food policy for five-year periods, and is currently in limbo at the Capitol. 

Meanwhile, grant recipients in Colorado have spent almost 70% of the LFPA funds, and with one more major harvest season in the fall, the state suspects the money will be gone by the end of the year. 

“Long story short is we need continuation of the current LFPA right now, that will last us until we have a permanent program,” Moschetti said. That’s why she invited the political group to hang out in an Aurora parking lot, watching mothers grab bags full of fresh greens and purple potatoes and tiny tomatoes, while their kids snacked on free peaches that a local farmer dropped off.

Springer, of Care and Share, is also eyeing the end of the funding, and has raised about $100,000 in order to continue Care and Share’s new partnerships. He would not name specific foundations that made donations.

Moschetti said that Nourish Colorado’s backup plan is similar to Springer’s: Look to philanthropy.

“I don’t think it’s philanthropy’s job to deal with things the federal government and the state government should be doing, but when there are gaps in government funding, that is exactly when philanthropy needs to step in,” Moschetti said. “And we’re facing a really big cliff right now.”

It was too expensive for the Three Leaches Theatre Company to practice Shakespeare in a proper rehearsal space, so they rented an office.

“Literally just a simple 400-square-foot room. We have some furniture in it, from our shows,” said Melissa Leach, co-founder of the Three Leaches.

The office cost Leach and her co-founder, Amber Irish, about $800 per month, and they rented it out to other small theater companies, like Flamboyán, a new Puerto Rican-focused theater group, for $15 an hour.

Finding rehearsal space in Denver has become increasingly challenging as rents go up and small theater companies are pushed out.

Meanwhile, remaining community strongholds, like the Buntport Theater near the Arts District on Santa Fe and The People’s Building in Aurora, are booked out a year in advance due to the high demand and low supply of affordable spaces.

In late May, the Benchmark Theater in Lakewood announced it would be leaving its home of six years. That meant an open theater space. The building is owned by the Colfax Business Improvement District, which leases it to creative community organizations. Leach interviewed for the spot and landed the new sublease. 

Three for one

The Three Leaches will have its name on the theater space, but they’ll be joined by Flamboyán, founded last year by Jon Marcantoni, and Josh Berkowitz of The Laboratory on Santa Fe. Flamboyán will occupy the stage four months of the year — February, June, September and November — while Berkowitz will largely control the theater’s attached gallery space. But the terms are flexible, and Leach and Marcantoni emphasized collaboration among the three groups. 

“We have a working relationship that’s just like, ‘communicate, overcommunicate,’” Marcantoni said. “Let’s work together, let’s make amazing art, let’s invite the community in and let’s be a space that isn’t just for us.”

The 40 West Arts District has been absorbing Metro Denver’s outpriced artists for the better part of a decade. In 2017, a handful of galleries, including Pirate Contemporary Art Gallery, Edge Gallery and Next Gallery, moved into the blossoming district. The theater building itself has housed 40 West Arts Gallery, Edge Theatre and the Benchmark Theater over the past 13 years.

The new Three Leaches Theater will be part performance space and part community hub, Leach said. They plan on hosting workshops, karaoke nights and participating in the art district’s vibrant First Friday Art Walks. Of course, they’ll also rent the theater out to small companies when they can. Leach said she hasn’t decided on rates yet, but it will probably be somewhere around the $15 per hour mark, just like in the office space.

“I want to talk to people in the community and see what is doable,” she said.

“We’re still doing this?”

Leach and Irish started their company 14 years ago, a couple of self-described “nerdy theater kids” with dreams of creating a “fun, exciting, kind of edgy theater that did what we wanted to do, and was affordable to everybody,” Leach said.

They planted a flag in “bare bones, scrappy” productions, grounded in a philosophy that good plays don’t require elaborate sets and costumes. They budgeted $1,000 per play, including all rentals, and kept ticket prices under $20.

“Every couple of years we’d be like, ‘We’re still doing this?’” she said. They kept doing it. They’ve produced 13 seasons worth of shows, including 10 minute plays, a Zoom play, “Macbeth” and lots of absurdist comedies. 

In 2021, Leach told Shoutout Colorado that they started excluding rental space fees from their $1,000 budgets because spaces were getting too expensive in Denver. They also switched to a pay-what-you-can ticket system to eliminate hesitation by new theatergoers.

“People are more likely to try something new if it costs them $5, rather than $30,” she said.

Making it work

Coming out of the pandemic, The Buntport Theater — which Leach considers a “role model” of community theater spaces — decided to offer their rehearsal space for free, before switching to a rate that is “just enough to keep our heating and cooling systems running,” Buntport co-founder Erin Rollman said.

“It was not a business or financial decision,” Rollman said. “We’re not making money, in fact we’re losing money. We made the decision because we know it’s extremely difficult to produce work in this town, and there are very few spaces to rent at this point.” She said they’re able to make up for the financial burden of cheap rental fees through grant funding from foundations like the Science and Cultural Facilities District, the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation and the Olson Vander Heyden Foundation.

But word got out — way out — about Buntport’s offer. According to the theater’s website, they are “overwhelmed with requests” by artists trying to book time. Not to mention, the Buntport has its own shows to rehearse and perform, including a season-opening production of “Buntport’s 55th Original Show” that starts Nov. 1. Rollman is excited at the prospect of another space to point inquiring artists toward.

“Honestly, it is overwhelming,” Rollman said. “It will just be nice to finally say, ‘there’s this other space you should check out.’”

Parker Yamasaki

Reporter

Note from this newsletter’s usual author: After meeting Roberto Meza at this 528-person dinner table, I connected him to my colleague Parker Yamasaki to dig into how his little farm in Bennett became a founding leg of the East Denver Food Hub and more. Enjoy! ~ tamara

Roberto Meza doesn’t need to close his eyes to visualize a changing food system anymore, he’s watching it happen week to week. The latest evidence: 600 containers of microgreens delivered to the Aurora Public Schools for the district’s “Farm Fresh Fridays” program.

“That is awesome,” Meza said. “What once was just a garnish in upscale fine dining is now replacing lettuce for students. They get way more nutrition and crunch and flavor. Now I know that’s possible. The goal is to replicate it.”

When Meza talks about changing the food system, he really means the whole system, including government subsidies that drive prices and guide institutional decision-making. Decisions like what schools are going to feed students.

The Colorado Sun first visited Meza and his cofounder, David Demerling, five years ago, as the two fresh-eyed, first generation farmers were gaining traction with their microgreen farm, Emerald Gardens.

Then the pandemic ripped through the restaurant industry. Until that point, Emerald Gardens was sustained by the food industry, so Meza and Demerling shifted their focus. They’d always had an eye on social justice and food equity, but the sudden vulnerability kicked them into high gear.

Filling the food system gaps

It started with food boxes for shelters and WIC recipients — a federal program that subsidizes healthy food for women, infants and children.

They prototyped the program in a shipping container on their land, and quickly realized “this is a whole separate thing,” Meza said. In March 2021, they moved into a 14,000-square-foot warehouse in northeastern Denver and opened the East Denver Food Hub.

A “hub” is the perfect way to describe their venture. The warehouse is currently a headquarters for three food supply businesses: Meza and Demerling’s Food Hub, their new nonprofit, the Ag and Food Lab, and a Mexican grocery store distributor, Altitude Produce. There are also rows of shelves reserved for Ela Family Farms, a back wall used by Ekar Farm, a room stacked high with sacks of beans (about 100,000 pounds by Meza’s estimate, from a farmer in Boulder), and a side room occupied by the Village Exchange Center.

“It’s kind of like this food ecosystem,” Meza said, standing in the middle of the warehouse, while two men loaded pallets of onions into the back of a semitruck. “That’s partly what has allowed us to understand the full food system so well. So our work moves forward through the gaps that we see.”

When they started the Food Hub in 2021, that gap was connecting underserved populations to fresh food. The U.S. Department of Agriculture noticed this gap too, and in December of that year authorized more than $400 million in American Rescue Plan Assistance, or ARPA funds, for states to procure local food —food grown within 400 miles — for underserved communities. The USDA strongly encouraged states to spend their funds on “socially disadvantaged producers,” which they defined as a group whose members have been discriminated against due to race, sex, age, disability or a number of other factors.

Colorado was the first state to sign onto the federal program, a mouthful known as the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, or LFPA for short. The state received nearly $4 million in funds during the first round of handouts. As the program expanded over the past two years, the federal government sent out close to $900 million total, and Colorado received close to $12 million.

Those funds were distributed to 34 applicants in the state and have been used to purchase food from over 100 local producers. The money also had a huge impact on places like the East Denver Food Hub, which received funds directly and through the purchases by food banks and shelters that received LFPA money.

But the funds are set to expire in April 2025, and according to the Colorado Department of Human Services, there is currently no way to continue the program.

“We don’t have a pandemic, but we didn’t solve hunger”

With the federal funds receding, Meza and Demerling are getting ready to pivot, again.

“We don’t have a pandemic, but we didn’t solve hunger,” Meza said. “What we learned during that time is that local procurement, investing in local infrastructure and workforce development, that’s how you solve hunger. It’s not just through donations of food.”

Meza envisions a system that addresses food insecurity and equity while also accounting for the health of “all beings” along the supply chain, he said. But that requires a big shift in cultural attitudes toward food and a heavy lift from government subsidies. It’s a project that the LFPA started, but it still has a long way to go.

“Whether we like it or not, we’re competing against a highly subsidized industrial food system,” Meza said. “It operates on low costs at the expense of labor practices, sustainable operations and animal welfare.”

In fall 2023, Meza and Demerling founded a nonprofit organization, the Ag and Food Lab, to help new farmers incubate their businesses. The farmers work on the Emerald Gardens land in Bennett and receive infrastructure and business help through the Lab. When the crops are ready to go, they become part of East Denver Food Hub’s procurements, heading out to pantries, shelters, schools and hospitals, as well as high-end restaurants like The Wolf’s Tailor, which received one of Colorado’s first Michelin stars last year.

Farming can be isolating, Meza said, and part of the incentive for starting the lab was to make sure new and immigrant farmers have a support network and access to chefs who can showcase their products.

But it is also about economics. When Meza and Demerling shifted from solely growing microgreens to running a full food hub, they focused largely on food justice initiatives. And the initiatives, “as necessary as they are, can’t affect our bottom line,” Meza said.

“The world is not prepared for the food system that we’re practicing, so we kind of have to do both at the same time,” he said, about operating for-profit and nonprofit businesses alongside each other. “This is our time to really rebuild the foundation. And there’s no reason why we can’t adjust our economics to accommodate that, knowing that it’s actually going to benefit everybody.”

Section by Parker Yamasaki | Reporter

If you’ve benefited from the LFPA, or know producers or distributors that are working to make local food more accessible, please email Parker at parker@coloradosun.com.

Sun economy stories you may have missed

➔ The Colorado community of Stagecoach is paradise to its residents. A luxury resort could turn it upside down. The same developers that turned Big Sky, Montana, into a resort town for billionaires are moving ahead with plans to bring luxury homes and a golf course to northwestern Colorado. Those who live there are raising concerns. >> Read story

➔ A new Colorado hospital opens this weekend. It’s built with the lessons of COVID in mind. Lutheran Medical Center is moving from its longtime home in Wheat Ridge to a new campus near Interstate 70 and West 40th Avenue. >> Read story

➔ Alarming reports about PERA’s finances spark questions about future of the state’s pension. A legislative oversight panel is considering whether to recommend further reforms to the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association. >> Read story

➔ Colorado water officials dream big, team up after feds drop $450 million for water projects. The surge of funds paves the way for large, multibenefit projects addressing drought and water conservation in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. >> Read story

Got some economic news or business bits Coloradans should know? Tell us: cosun.co/heyww

Other working bits

➔ Denver’s minimum wage increasing to $18.81 in January. The city of Denver just released how much its minimum wage is going up in 2025: 52 cents. That’s 2.8% higher than the existing $18.29. While this is expected because the city’s wage is based on inflation, this also translates into a 69.5% increase since 2019, when Denver broke away from the state to set its own minimum wage. Colorado’s wage next year is set to go up as well, though officials have not announced the new amount. It’ll likely be similar to Denver’s increase, which would put Colorado’s minimum wage in 2025 at around $14.82 an hour. >> Denver’s wage update

➔ Denver airport traffic up 9.2% in first six months of 2024. Numbers-wise, that translates into 39,937,380 passengers who came, went or just passed through Denver International Airport, aka DEN. Each month also set a record, airport officials said. International traffic also grew, up 17.2% compared with the same period a year ago. But DEN does expect growth to slow for the rest of the year because it may be hard to top 2023’s huge travel year (remember the passport delays that even had a Colorado senator asking for answers?). Based on the first five months of this year, Denver ranked as the nation’s third busiest airport by the Airports Council International, and sixth busiest in the world.

• Related: The airport has 300 job openings. And there’s going to be an in-person job fair to fill them. Scheduled for Aug. 13 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., around 50 airport-related employers are expected with openings at airlines, airport food and restaurants, rental car companies and more (massage therapists!). To check it out, take the RTD A Line, which will lead right to the job fair, located on the plaza between the Westin Hotel and Jeppesen Terminal near the south security checkpoint. Otherwise, airport parking is $7 an hour. >> Details and registration

➔ LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman headlining Denver’s AI event. The upcoming DenAI Summit, a first city-led conference on artificial intelligence, just named more speakers who will be at the Sept. 19 event at the Colorado Convention Center. Besides Hoffman, who will join Denver Mayor Mike Johnston in a fireside chat, there’s also Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of Promise, a California payment processor for utilities and governments, and two CEOs from Denver companies: Bryan Leach, with retail app Ibotta, and Bijal Shah, with Guild, which connects everyday workers to educational opportunities. >> Details

➔ Disaster prep? SBA shares guide for small businesses. The guide includes best practices and templates to help small business owners plan and recover from disasters. >> Find it here

➔ Want to paint a mural along Denver trails? Denver Parks & Recreation has an open call for mural artists to paint something cool along the city’s trail system. Three artists will be chosen based on how they’d interpret Denver’s natural resources when it comes to water, urban forest, landscape transformation, habitat protection and environmental stewardship. Commissions pay $6,000 each. Submit a proposal by Aug. 25 because the installations start “Summer/Fall 2024,” which is … now! >> Details at denvergov.org/nature

Section by Tamara Chuang | Business/Technology Reporter

Thanks for sticking with me for this week’s report. Remember to check out The Sun’s daily coverage online. As always, share your 2 cents on how the economy is keeping you down or helping you up at cosun.co/heyww. ~ tamara

Miss a column? Catch up:

• Colorado top-paying and lowest-paying jobs
• Repurposing old stuff in Colorado can be profitable
• Despite setbacks, a Durango builder is framing affordable houses in under a month
• What consumers and businesses need to know about Colorado’s “Do not sell my data” law
• Colorado employers may finally have found enough workers
• How a Denver company is fighting the problem of underemployment
• Why Colorado could start attracting more filmmakers
• New broadband laws to help Colorado streamline distribution of $800+ million

What’s Working is a Colorado Sun column about surviving in today’s economy. Email tamara@coloradosun.com with stories, tips or questions. Read the archive, ask a question at cosun.co/heyww and don’t miss the next one by signing up at coloradosun.com/getww.

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The sky was blue in Estes Park on Wednesday afternoon, but the streets were quieter than usual. There were fewer cars and less pedestrian traffic, and road construction that’s been the bane of downtown businesses two summers in a row had ground to a halt. 

“I definitely know what a day in July should look like, and it’s not this,” said Diane Muno, who has owned gift and retail shops in Estes Park for 18 years.

About 12 miles northeast of town, the Alexander Mountain Fire had burned over 6,000 acres and was at 0% containment. Fifteen miles southeast, the Stone Canyon Fire blazed through 1,500 acres, destroying five structures and causing one fatality. (Those numbers have since increased to more than 9,100 acres and at least two dozen structures damaged or destroyed by the Alexander Mountain fire.)

U.S. 34, which runs east through Big Thompson Canyon to Loveland, was closed. U.S. 36, which runs southeast through St. Vrain Canyon to Lyons, had closed and then reopened. But most residents, including Muno, were waiting it out in Estes Park, judiciously checking the Watch Duty app and listening for communications from town officials. 

They knew better than to panic, but they also knew better than to be lulled by the blue skies. “We always keep an eye on the wind here,” Muno said.

When tourist season and fire season collide

July and August are the heart of Estes Park’s tourism season, a time that supercharges local business and generates important tax revenue for the town.

Last year, Visit Estes Park launched an “Extend the Season” campaign to try to promote visitation beyond summer and fall. They revamped and marketed Frozen Dead Guy Days in March and the Catch the Glow holiday events beginning in November. The efforts generated decent revenue for local initiatives — close to $30,000 for workforce housing, nearly $10,000 for the high school band, a few hundred dollars for the Estes Park Nonprofit Network and a couple hundred for the high school prom.

But summer is still peak season for Estes Park by a mile. In 2023 almost half of the town’s lodging tax revenue for the year was generated in June, July and August alone, and a majority of the town’s 2.1 million annual visitors (part of the roughly 4.1 million who roll through town to get to Rocky Mountain National Park), visited during summer and fall.

On Thursday, Rocky Mountain National Park implemented a stage 2 fire ban, meaning no fires of any kind are allowed in the park, not even in designated firepits. The last time the park issued a stage 2 fire ban was August 2020, during the Cameron Peak fire, Colorado’s largest wildfire on record.

At the time of writing, the park is still allowing travelers to enter, but they are encouraging people to travel with caution and remain highly aware of information from public officials. 

Events planned for this weekend and next are being canceled one by one. 

As of Friday, the Community Art Festival, the Westernaires Wild West Show and the Rocky Mountain Half Marathon have been canceled. So has programming by the Rocky Mountain Conservancy scheduled to take place Aug. 6 and Aug. 13 in Rocky Mountain National Park.

“We’ve been here before”

Kimi Nash, owner of Kind Coffee in Estes Park, said that energy in the town is reminiscent of fall 2020, when the Cameron Peak fire and the East Troublesome fires forced the whole town to evacuate. 

“That October there were only two ways out of town,” Nash said. “So when they shut down highways 34 and 36 (earlier) this week, everyone just became very concerned.” 

The coffee shop’s social media account encouraged travelers to keep the roads clear for first responders, but let everyone already in Estes know that they would be open during regular business hours. 

Trying to keep things as normal as possible, for as long as possible, was a recurring attitude among business owners in town. 

Back in 2020, when the town was evacuated, the then-owner of Kind Coffee stayed behind to make drinks for firefighters and first responders. Nash said that if evacuation orders are issued she would close the shop for sure, but until then, they are offering free drinks to those fighting on the front lines. 

More than anything, Nash is impressed by the community’s response to the tough situation. 

A local diner, You Need Pie, posted on Facebook that they’d provide a free meal to anyone who was evacuated or fighting the fire. Across the street, the family-run Reel Mountain Theater posted that they’d give free movie tickets, popcorn and a drink to all evacuees. 

“Unfortunately, we’ve been here before,” Nash said. “We’re calm but freaked out.”

Kalyn Rose Heffernan has played shows all over the world and never been asked about her accessibility needs. 

“It’s wild to me,” said the emcee frontwoman of hip-hop group Wheelchair Sports Camp. “Wheelchair is in my band name. All of my pictures are me in a wheelchair. And you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been placed at a festival upstairs.”

Wheelchair Sports Camp has been a sonic staple in Denver for over a decade, and they’ve played the annual Underground Music Showcase a handful of years during that time. In 2022, Youth on Record, a nonprofit music organization that Heffernan works for, took over partial ownership of the festival. The ownership agreement came with a commitment to audit and overhaul the festival’s accessibility strategy. Heffernan was the obvious first call.

Growing Denver’s largest music festival

The Underground Music Showcase, a three-day, multivenue festival with nearly 200 acts, bubbled up in 2001 at the Bluebird Theater on Colfax. For a few years the showcase — which started with four bands for $5 — bopped back and forth between the Bluebird and the Gothic Theater in Englewood, until 2006, when it settled into its current location, a six-block strip of South Broadway. 

Over its 23-year run, the festival has changed hands from Denver Post reporter John Moore (now the arts and entertainment reporter at the Denver Gazette), to the Post’s then-music critic Ricardo Baca (now of the marketing agency Grasslands), to The Denver Post itself through the paper’s community foundation, and finally, in 2018, to its current co-owner, the marketing agency Two Parts.

Two years ago, Youth on Record, a nonprofit music organization, got in on the action. 

Youth on Record had received a surprise, unrestricted $1 million donation from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott in 2021, which Jami Duffy, executive director of Youth on Record, wanted to put toward building a “musician middle class.” That meant investing in things like professional development, higher wages and more opportunities for young musicians “to get in front of people,” Duffy explained. “So I looked at that and said, why don’t we see if that’s possible under UMS’ umbrella?”

Putting accessibility in writing

In March 2022, Duffy met with Casey Berry of Two Parts at the late-night hang Sputnik and inked their new co-ownership deal. Part of the ownership agreement included an accessibility audit, conducted by Youth on Record. 

They didn’t get straight to it. During Youth on Record’s first year of co-ownership, they had “some other things to focus on,” Duffy said. They set up sober bars, created a “care lounge” for artists to recharge away from the noise, and started Impact Days, a two-day industry-focused conference for musicians to learn and network.

Then it was time to hire Heffernan.

“Kalyn’s always been such a leader for accessibility rights. She’s a huge advocate in our community. She works with kids. And, bonus points, she’s also a well-respected career musician,” Duffy said. “So there was no better option locally.”

They also brought in Jessica Wallach, an accessibility consultant and artist who sometimes uses a scooter to get around. Together, Wallach and Heffernan conducted a comprehensive audit of every venue at UMS. 

“Just by us rolling through these places, and knowing little tricks, I think we were able to explain the accessibility of places in a way that hopefully other people are going to benefit from,” Heffernan said. 

“You know, like, ‘the door is heavy, but once you get in, it’s nice and open. The bathrooms are accessible, but the sink is high up.’ Weird shit like that.”

Together they compiled the festival’s first accessibility guide, which details everything from where to find water (for concertgoers and service dogs alike) to what the floor is like (the stage at Goodwill has freshly paved concrete, the stage at Punch Bowl has potholes). This year’s guide is 31 pages and can be downloaded ahead of time in regular or large print, and can be read at the festival in braille. 

“Ability is temporary”

The goal is to make bigger changes in the coming years, like building raised platforms at the main stages, creating low-sensory spaces where people can take breaks, hiring American Sign Language interpreters, and looking into alternative modes of experiencing music, like vibrating haptic suits that allow wearers to feel the music. 

But all of that costs money. Duffy is looking for an additional $50,000 next year to specifically address accessibility needs. 

“Something Kalyn taught me that has stayed with me is that ability is temporary,” Duffy said. “At some point in most of our lives, we will experience a disability, whether that’s temporary, long-term or forever. It could be because of an illness, because of an accident. You know, there’s all kinds of things that can happen. So ensuring accessibility for people with disabilities means that everyone is being taken care of.”

For now, the accessibility committee — headed by Wallach and Heffernan — is focused on providing an abundance of information so people with access needs know what they’re getting into. Along with the accessibility guide, they will have on-site coordinators and a tent with ear plugs, water and power strips to charge wheelchairs. 

For Heffernan, working with UMS “really filled a void. And like, (quieted) the rage,” she said. “It’s frustrating at times. If I don’t say something, nobody will, and if I say something then I’m working within all these trade-offs,” she said, referencing the inaccessible shows she’s gone ahead and played, but that upset the disability community in the process. “What a dream world it would be to just make my art and play music.”

BOULDER COUNTY — Ned Gravel had only one reported accident Saturday, July 13, during its fourth annual race where 870 riders pedaled courses ranging from 10 to 116 miles up thousands of feet in temperatures pushing 90 degrees. But alleged complications with communication has some critics questioning the safety of rural Colorado races. 

A man was seriously injured when multiple riders crashed while coming around a tight corner on Gold Hill Road on Saturday morning. When Indian Peaks Fire Protection District paramedics responded, other riders swerved in front of them, impeding their ability to reach the victim quickly, according to a post on Nedheads Facebook group after the fallen racer was transported to a Boulder hospital by ambulance. 

Emergency responders, all volunteers, say they were caught off guard by the race crawling across their 122-square-mile region, although records show the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office alerted Indian Peaks, as it does any fire protection district with an official event planned for its service area.

Race organizer Gavin Coombs said he hopes to sit down with Indian Peaks responders and discuss the incident. In the four years since the race started it’s the first time Indian Peaks has had to respond to an emergency call, he said. 

In the meantime, Coombs, like other organizers of gravel races in Colorado, has framed up a new code of conduct for cyclists participating in his races, hoping to cut down on race-day conflicts.

Coombs said the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, the Colorado State Patrol and Gilpin County were all alerted prior to race day. Ned Gravel also contracts with Event Medical Specialists to have six medical providers, partnered with amateur radio operators, stationed along the course to respond to emergencies. And its operations plan includes a detailed emergency response plan that lists things like evacuation pickup sites and a designated emergency treatment facility. 

Andy Bohlmann, who organized hundreds of cycling races as the first technical director for the U.S. Cycling Federation, now USA Cycling, said it sounds like Ned Gravel “had its act together” based on information in its emergency plan, but that gravel racing in general “is very loose, meaning there are no rules or regulations or oversight or checks and balances on the race organizers.” And with some events, he added, he’s surprised no racers have been killed.

“There’s no governing body to assign some kind of official to monitor these events, to get them in some kind of order,” he said. “These people don’t want organization but then they’ve got to find insurance. You have to have insurance to be an entity, and usually an entity is a 501(c)(3). But that doesn’t mean they know how to organize a bike race. And gravel racing is as dangerous as any road race.”

Gravel’s behavior problem 

The rider injured during Ned Gravel is “stable and OK,” Coombs said. 

But according to comments in the same Nedheads post, once Indian Peaks responders reached him, some riders were “funneling at top speed” between the ambulance and the patient, making it nearly impossible to get supplies like oxygen to him. 

It’s an extreme example of similar attitudes that have prevailed in other races, like SBT GRVL, in Routt County, which ended with ranchers decrying last year’s race. Several public meetings were held in the aftermath in which area ranchers said riders’ trash, selfish attitudes and disregard for safety were more than they could take. For months it was unknown if SBT GRVL would continue after Routt County commissioners scheduled a public hearing to decide its future. 

Discussion are ongoing and this year’s race is scheduled for Aug. 18. 

“We haven’t worked through all of the challenges, but we’ve certainly engaged in a really robust process of public meetings, and to the race organizers’ credit, they did quite a bit of work to respond to concerns of citizens,” Commissioner Tim Corrigan said. 

Top concerns were safety and attitude of racers toward the communities in which they ride. 

SBT GRVL cofounder Amy Charity said a number of significant changes have been made to the  2024 “action plan,” including operational updates such as new routes that use less traveled roads and eliminate bi-directional rider traffic, asking Colorado State Patrol to control the front of the race, increasing the number of traffic marshals, beefing up on-course resident outreach and focusing on “education and stewardship messaging” to riders.

Another key change focuses on rider education with the Respect the Routt campaign, which hones in on key topics such as safety, stewardship and kindness, Charity said. 

And all race participants must sign a new set of SBT GRVL oaths prior to starting this year’s race. These include riding on the right side of the road and obeying pertinent traffic laws, respectfully sharing roads with other users, using portable toilets (rather than relieving themselves on private property), and “practicing kindness to others on and off the bike” amid the understanding that this event is inclusive of all. 

Making gravel friendly again

In some instances, organizers in other locations have taken it upon themselves to preemptively ease the burden on communities. 

At a July 1 community meeting in Beulah, fire crews indicated the Oak Ridge Fire, which has been burning since late June, could take weeks to get under control.

The crews were staging on part of the Twelvemile Gravel Hill Climb, which features a short, gutpunch of a course where beginners can get used to safely suffering on the bike, and pros can lay it all out.

No one could be sure how long the fire efforts would take, so Adam Davidson, founder of Grassroots Gravel which hosts the hill climb, immediately canceled the race.

“It’s like the one opportunity in gravel to have a bunch of clangity, clangity, clangity, clangity, clangity, clang,” Davidson said, mimicking the sound of cowbells used to cheer on bike racers.

But calling it off, he said, “was a no-brainer,” even though this would have been the race’s first year.  “It also gives us the opportunity to reassess the race. Like, does it make sense in the coming year to hold it during fire season?”

Like most gravel races, Twelvemile is a no-refunds and no-deferrals event. Grassroots donated what was left of registration fees to the Nature and Wildlife Discovery Center, which has been hosting fire crews at its mountain campus in Beulah, and the Beulah Fire Protection District.  

“Literally the last thing that I want to do is create a burden on a community or be exploitative of the community,” he said. “That’s not what we’re here for. Like I’d rather not run an event than for it to be a net negative on the community. We want to be a symbiote. We don’t want to be a parasite.”

As for Ned Gravel, Coombs said starting next year, riders will have to sign a code of conduct when they register. They’ll have to follow rules of the roads, show respect to residents, motorists and race personnel, adhere to all laws including stopping and/or moving over for emergency vehicles and defer to first responders as well as uniformed and non-uniformed officers, he said. 

If a rider violates the code and someone catches them, they’ll be disqualified and could face banishment from all future races. And the new rules will “trickle through” all other events Coombs’ production company, Peak to Peak Endurance, presents, he said.  

NOTE: The Bellvue monolith has been removed because of the “overwhelming influx of people” to Morning Fresh Dairy Farm, a statement posted to Facebook says.

BELLVUE — On top of a hill prickly with dry grass and cacti is a four-sided structure that looks like the sky, the hills and the small crowd of people standing next to it, but it’s none of those things. It’s not a riddle, it’s a monolith. Perhaps the 247th spotted worldwide since 2020. 

It appeared unexpectedly on Sunday in Bellvue, northwest of Fort Collins, on the expansive property of Rob and Lori Graves, who own Morning Fresh Dairy Farm, a Noosa Yoghurt factory, and the Howling Cow Cafe. A cafe manager spotted the structure in the distance as she arrived at work in the morning, but didn’t think anything of it until a customer came in and asked to be pointed toward “the alien structure.” 

The Howling Cow has been part of the farm property since 2014, and has become a popular cycling stop that serves the dairy’s fresh creams and yogurts. As of Monday, though, it’s become a gathering place for bagel sandwiches and hypotheses about alien life. 

On a chalkboard menu, drink names have been given an extraterrestrial spin. Order the “Beam Me Up” for a cold brew with a double shot, or a “Radio Wave” for an Italian soda with cold foam. The monthly ice cream flavor, orange juice shake, has been relabeled the “Cow Abduction.” Alien figures drawn on the menu have thought bubbles that read: “beep beep boop beep.”

“They probably just weren’t getting enough business,” one diner offered.

Marketing ploy or not, the shiny metal monolith, bolted to a slab of concrete, certainly hasn’t hurt business.

By 11 a.m. Thursday a line had formed in the cafe from the counter to the door, a dozen customers long, and didn’t let up until well after noon. A second rush arrived around 2 p.m.

“Been busy?” a customer asked a barista from the line.

The barista nodded and laughed. “Where’s the monolith?” she said mockingly. Then she softened. “Actually, it’s kind of cool. I just can’t say that word anymore.”

Then she pushed a milky green beverage onto the counter: “Crop Circle!” she yelled into the crowd, the cafe’s new name for a matcha latte with vanilla. 

Monolith #1

The monolith mysteries began in November 2020, when a crew from the Utah Department of Public Safety was flying over remote, desert backcountry counting bighorn sheep. They spotted an unusual metal gleam deep in a slot canyon, and landed the helicopter to investigate. There they found the first mysteriously placed monolith, a roughly 10-foot-tall prism lodged into the red earth.

Photos and videos from the incident were posted to the agency’s blog. “Please don’t try and visit the site as the road is not suitable for most Earth-based vehicles,” the Utah BLM tweeted. 

But this was late 2020, six months into deep pandemic isolation. Internet sleuthing was at an all-time high and the prospect of visiting a remote site in the desert where few people had been, and were unlikely to be, was simply too tempting. 

A subreddit sprung up, r/FindTheMonolith, and more than 3,000 people joined it to theorize about its origin and locate the Utah phenomenon. In less than 24 hours a location was pinpointed and posted to Reddit, and some users used Google Earth imagery to determine that it was placed sometime in late 2015 or early 2016. To some, the timeline added to the appeal of the piece. It was still possible, in an age of satellite imagery and social media stunts, to leave a mark that went completely undetected for years. 

Less than two weeks after its viral debut, the monolith was gone — hauled away in the night by a group of four men concerned with the environmental impact of so many visitors on the delicate Utah backcountry. 

But while the men trucked the monolith out of the desert, something strange was happening halfway around the world — the same day the Utah monolith came down, a second monolith was reported on a plateau near Piatra Neamt in Romania. Days later a third popped up in Atascadero, California. 

Over the course of 2020, dozens more monoliths were reported to monolithtracker.com, a mix of hastily placed copycats and “S-Class” monoliths, or “significant monoliths, well made, with zero explanations of appearance,” according to the website’s six-part classification system. The original Utah monolith and the quick Romanian follow-up are two of three “S-Class” monoliths in the world. The third appeared in Spain in April 2021.

According to The Associated Press, the Bureau of Land Management is still actively investigating the Utah case.

Colorado’s monolith culture

In Colorado, three monoliths have been spotted and reported to the site. The first showed up in December 2020 at the Spaceport in Watkins. It was reported to have been fabricated by Bill Zempel, the owner of neighboring Mile High Aircraft Services, making it a “K-Class” monolith, or a monolith of “known origin.”

The next two showed up days later, at Sunlight Mountain near Glenwood Springs and Chautauqua Park in Boulder. Though their origin hasn’t yet been determined, they are deemed “Q-Class,” or “questionable monoliths,” likely to be knockoffs “considering their origin or appearance.”

Monolith spotting slowed down into 2021 and the site went all but dormant until March this year, when one showed up in Wales. Earlier this month, a second monolith appeared outside of Las Vegas, but was promptly removed by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department — just a day before the one showed up at the dairy in Bellvue. The Las Vegas and Bellvue monoliths have not been classified yet.

“I know a lot of people are in a hurry to get here because they’re afraid it’s going to disappear,” Graves said. “I kind of hope it stays, I mean it’s kind of pretty.” 

There are a lot of maybes that hover around monoliths. Maybe it’s an ad. Maybe it’s a TV prop. Maybe it was placed there by a prankster, an artist, a mischievous neighbor, the U.S. government. Maybe it was placed on Earth by aliens. Maybe we’re the aliens. 

Of course, part of the fascination depends on not having the answer to its origin. The most likely “maybe” with the monoliths is that maybe few people want to know in the first place.  

By Thursday afternoon Graves was getting reports that some Instagram commenters had turned against the monolith. “Not so favorable posts,” one of the baristas texted her. “I didn’t even know we had a picture of it on our Instagram,” Graves said.

Meanwhile, a steady stream of visitors made their way up the hill, took photos with it, speculated about whether it would be struck by lightning or start a wildfire. 

The baristas, for their part, were feeling worked, despite having bumped their staffing up to accommodate the weeklong rush. They were out of sandwich bread. A compressor was on the fritz. “We can’t really sustain this,” Graves said. “I think it’s going to be a blip.”

But until the hype dies down or the pillar gets beamed up, the Howling Cow Cafe will keep serving Monolith Mochas.

A group of labor supporters and Denver workers on Monday rallied to support a ballot measure that could give city employees the right to negotiate new labor contracts.

Under federal and state law, public sector workers do not have the right to collective bargaining, the process of negotiating a labor contract with union representation. But every major Democratically controlled city in a blue state has granted its workers those rights in its city charter according to materials distributed by the Communications Workers of America, one of the groups supporting the charter amendment. That is, every city except for Denver. 

The city council will vote on the measure July 8. If approved, the decision will be thrown to Denver voters on the November ballot.

Roughly 4,000 police officers, sheriff’s departments, firefighters and public school teachers already have the right to unionize and collectively bargain. The amendment to the charter would affect another 7,000 municipal city workers, including library workers, park rangers, trash collectors, social workers and others. 

“As of today we know that 25% of city of Denver employees are able to collectively bargain,” City Councilwoman Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, one of the original sponsors of the measure, said at the Monday rally. “I want to say that 25% is not enough.”

How it works

For the charter amendment to make it onto the November ballot, seven of Denver’s 13-person council will have to support it. The measure was introduced in April by council members Gonzales-Gutierrez, Chris Hinds, Shontel Lewis and Sarah Parady, and has since received the support of council members Amanda Sawyer, Stacie Gilmore, Paul Kashmann, Flor Alvidrez and Council President Jamie Torres, who have all signed on as co-sponsors.

If the measure fails in city council, however, it can still appear on November’s ballot if organizers submit signatures from 10% of the county’s registered voters by the beginning of August. As of May, there are 545,841 registered or pre-registered voters in Denver County, so the measure would need roughly 54,000 signatures.

Organizers from the Communications Workers of America have already started collecting signatures in case the measure falls short in city council, but they are generally confident they have the support of city council and will be able to forgo the collection effort. 

Movement toward collective bargaining

A similar change to the city charter has been tried twice — in 1980 and 1997 — and promises have been made to expand collective bargaining throughout the 2000s. But the post-pandemic tide has shifted the public attitude toward labor organizing in a major way. 

As The Colorado Sun reported, support of unions grew to a 57-year-high in 2022 as Americans sympathized with frontline and service workers. But the threat of retaliation lingers until workers ratify a contract, which only a fraction of private sector unions have been able to do.

Over the past few years, protections for public sector workers at the state level have been inching toward collective bargaining rights, with the legislature passing two bargaining-oriented bills in 2022 and 2023. 

In 2022, Senate Bill 230 granted organizing and collective bargaining rights to county workers. The final bill extended rights to counties with more than 7,500 people and excluded city, school and college workers. Denver was excluded from the bill because it is a home rule county, a municipality where local ordinances and charters supersede state law. 

The bill stopped short of granting some key leverage to workers, including not requiring counties to accept mediation during contract negotiations and prohibiting county workers in a union from going on strike, as reported by CPR.

In April Boulder County employees became one of the first groups to take advantage of the new labor rights, though the group has been meeting regularly since 2020. 

Last year, Senate Bill 111 extended protections to public sector workers — including city and county workers in Denver — granting them the right to engage in the political process outside of work; express concerns with their terms of employment; and organize, form, join or assist an employee organization. 

In other words, the bill gave workers a foothold to organize without fearing retaliation or disciplinary action from the employers, but stopped short of granting collective bargaining rights. 

The workaround

Other industry-specific public sector workers have moved toward organizing through what is known as pre-majority unions, or groups of workers who act collectively but do not have a collective bargaining agreement. 

Denver Public Library workers, for instance, have been operating as a pre-majority union since 2021, with representation by the Communication Workers of America Local 7799. CWA Local 7799 also represents Pikes Peak library workers, Colorado public defenders, Denver Health workers, UC Health workers and the United Campus Workers of Colorado.

If the measure makes it onto the November ballot, and if voters approve it, that doesn’t mean public sector workers will automatically renegotiate their contracts. A change in the charter would simply give workers the option to use a union to collectively bargain. 

While library workers have shown much initiative in organizing, other groups that could be affected by the charter change, like park rangers, trash collectors and city planners, have not publicly shown any indication of unionizing.

A one-time grant of $1.5 million was delivered to a coalition in Boulder working to bring the Sundance Film Festival to the city for 10 years beginning in 2027.

Sundance Film Festival has been hosted in Park City, Utah, since 1985, but in recent years locals and festival goers alike have been grumbling about the cost and accessibility of visiting a high-end mountain town in the middle of winter. 

In April, the Sundance Institute began considering a new home for the world renown festival beginning in 2027. Boulder responded to a request for information in May and was invited to submit a host-city proposal.

The city submitted its proposal on Thursday, on behalf of the Boulder Convention and Visitors Bureau (Visit Boulder) and a regional coalition of partners, including the City of Boulder, the Boulder Chamber, the University of Colorado Boulder and the Stanley Film Center.

Late last year, Colorado put up $300,000 to lure the Sundance Institute Directors Lab to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park for two years, with $200,000 from the state Strategic Fund, $50,000 from the Colorado Tourism Office and $50,000 from the state’s film office.

At the time, the Colorado film office declined to comment on whether this move was part of a broader strategy to lure Sundance to Colorado, but the potential impact of hosting the festival was not lost on the state or its film champions. The film office noted that they hope the lab’s successful first year in Colorado will also act as an incentive for the Institute to continue its relationship with the state.

The request submitted Thursday included a one-time, $1.5 million grant from the Colorado Economic Development Commission that will come from the Strategic Fund Reserve.

The Economic Development Commission receives an annual $5 million allocation to their strategic fund from the state’s general fund. Within the strategic fund, the commission has built up a strategic reserve, which enables them to quickly tap into big sums of money for “transformative” projects like bringing Sundance to Colorado, according to Eve Lieberman, executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade. The fund was last tapped in 2021 to help CDOT secure the Burnham Yard property.

An additional $250,000 will be contributed by the Colorado Office of Film, TV and media over five years, and one-time contributions of $50,000 from the Colorado Tourism Office and $25,000 from Colorado Creative Industries were also added to Boulder’s proposal. 

The money is part of the incentive package to convince Sundance to move to Colorado. In comparison, Utah allocates somewhere between $1.3 million and $2 million per year to keep the festival in Park City. Lieberman said they do not know how many cities Boulder is competing with for the festival. “What we’re really stressing is a strong cultural fit between mountain destinations. The evolution from Park City to Boulder is a logical one,” Gov. Jared Polis said in an interview. “We have greater capacity in Boulder with the beautiful backdrop of the Flatirons, we have historical ties with the Redford family — Robert Redford attended CU — and we have a partnership with the University of Colorado.”

Commissioners at the meeting were assured that matching funds are also available from “an ever-growing list of philanthropic contributions, as well as substantial in-kind commitments from a number of different entities.” However, details about the matching funds were not disclosed.

At an Economic Development Commission meeting Thursday morning, Donald Zuckerman, head of the Colorado film office, noted that they expect $5 million in annual net sales tax revenue should the festival land in Boulder. It is also projected to bring around 40,000 to 50,000 visitors to the Front Range in the middle of January, a time of relatively low occupancy and visitorship, according to the Colorado Tourism Office. 

CTO estimated spillover benefits of $30 million to $50 million annually, as festival goers extend their trips to visit the mountains, Colorado Springs, Loveland and Estes Park. The Office of Economic Development and International Trade said that number is closer to $100 million, based on Utah’s economic activity.

The bid for a bigger film industry

Recently the state has been pushing to attract more movie-industry activity. In May, Polis signed a tax incentive credit for film and TV productions. House Bill 1358 lengthened the amount of time that an existing $5 million annual tax credit is available to four years from one, with the hope of securing more episodic series and bigger movies, and building a stable film infrastructure in the state. 

It also got rid of a stipulation that made the money contingent on a $50 million state budget surplus. The bill was a follow-up to a $5 million tax credit offered in 2023, a meager chunk of what was recommended by the 2022 Film Incentive Task Force of $15 million for five years.

Colorado doesn’t offer anything close to New Mexico’s $110 million in tax incentive payouts, but the expansion makes the state competitive with other neighboring states, including Wyoming and Utah. It’s worth noting that all four states currently host some part of the Sundance Institute’s expansive programming — with the Directors Lab in Estes Park, the Native Lab in New Mexico, the Producers Lab in Wyoming and, of course, the festival in Park City.

The state is also deeply involved in a new nonprofit film center housed at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. In 2015 the center was awarded $46 million in sales tax rebate incentives for 30 years through the Regional Tourism Act. 

In January, Polis and his film office announced that Blumhouse, the producer of horror movies like “Halloween,” “Paranormal Activity” and “Get Out,” will curate 10,000 feet of exhibit space at the new center.

Originally the Stanley Film Center was part of a complex deal between the Grand Heritage Hotel Group, which bought the Stanley out of bankruptcy in the 1990s and operates the hotel, the Arizona-based Community Finance Corp., and the Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority. When the deal with the Arizona group did not materialize, CECFA stepped in with the plan to acquire the hotel, which required legislation to adjust its mission and allow the purchase and management of a property. In May the governor signed the legislation that makes it easier for the CECFA to own and manage the film center and hotel.

It’s rare to find workers at a medium-sized company relieved by their employer’s corporate buyout, but that is what’s happening at two of Colorado’s Alamo Drafthouse locations. 

Last week, the Austin, Texas-based theater company, known for its in-seat dining and cinephile events, announced that it would be sold to Sony and lumped into a new division, Sony Pictures Experiences, helmed by Alamo’s chief executive, Michael Kustermann. This is the first time in more than 20 years that a major studio has owned a theater chain. 

The news came just a few weeks after employees at the Sloan’s Lake and Westminster locations held union elections. Sloan’s Lake unequivocally voted for a union on May 31, while Westminster is awaiting a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board on two challenged ballots. Colorado’s third location, in Littleton, has not filed for union representation.

The new ownership won’t necessarily change who sits across the table from the unions during contract negotiations, the next step in the unionizing process, but it could create a more favorable environment than organizers have endured so far.

How we got here

Since announcing an intent to unionize in January, workers at both Alamo locations have alleged the company engaged in illegal union busting tactics, including coercing employees to meet one-on-one with a labor consultant, creating the impression of surveillance of union activities and removing union materials from bulletin boards. 

As Westword reported in February, shortly after the union announcement, the company updated their fraternization policy to prohibit coworkers from engaging socially or romantically outside of work, including on social media. Around the same time, an “independent educator” was hired to work at all three locations. One employee told Westword that the educator “focuses on issues that could make people hesitant to unionize.” 

With the ownership change, some organizers hope that the company will shift its tone as they enter negotiations. 

“Unfortunately, we’re still dealing with a bust-heavy Alamo leadership,” said Ian Miller, a former Alamo Drafthouse employee and organizer with the Communications Workers of America. “The good news is Sony has a litany of unions that they work with. I wouldn’t say they’re friendly, but it’s definitely more well-trodden territory.” 

Miller is one of three employees listed in an unfair labor practice case that alleges he was fired in retaliation for organizing.

Why now?

Sony’s purchase marks the first time a studio has moved in on a theater chain since the Paramount Consent Decrees, a set of laws that banned major studios from owning theaters, were rescinded in 2020. 

Issued in 1948, the decrees were a set of antitrust laws spun off from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that forced Hollywood’s eight largest movie studios to sell their theater holdings. At the time, those eight studios controlled about 95% of the movie industry, from production to distribution to exhibition.

The goal was to divorce the studios from that final step in the movie cycle in order to generate competition and prevent controversial practices like “block booking,” or forcing theaters to book a studio’s poor performers in order to access its blockbusters. 

Because the decrees named only the eight largest studios, it hasn’t prevented studios from owning theaters outright. But the 2020 ruling lifting the decrees opened up the theater business entirely.

That ruling emphasized the fact that technological advancements — most notably streaming — have broadened the path to distribution. Movie theaters, the Department of Justice seemed to say, matter less these days. 

For a while, it seemed like the major studios agreed with the Justice Department — none made immediate moves to scoop up a theater chain. 

Netflix and Disney purchased a few individual theaters (Netflix owns the Paris Theater in New York, The Egyptian in Los Angeles and the Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades; Disney owns the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles), but those moves appeared to be mostly for the glamor and historical value of the theaters themselves. Sony’s purchase is the first sign of a major studio moving in on a major chain. 

“A glimmering beacon of integrity”

The purchase didn’t come as a surprise. Despite its popularity, Alamo Drafthouse has been in a downward financial spiral since the pandemic — by no means a unique position in the movie theater business. In 2021 the chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was nabbed by a private equity firm, Altamont Capital Partners and Fortress Investment Group. 

“Compared to Altamont, Sony is a glimmering beacon of integrity,” said Miller. 

“Everything that worsened about Alamo is because of Altamont,” he added. “We lost the ability to kick out guests. We were the gold standard, at least on a chain level, for the moviegoing experience. At least Sony has a vested interest in their theaters. In terms of buyouts it was one of the better options.”

Altamont said in a statement provided by a spokesperson that the company “had no involvement in any changes regarding Alamo’s customer removal protocols or policies. The firm remained dedicated to strengthening the brand’s team, technology, and customer experience throughout our partnership with Alamo Drafthouse.”

There has been much speculation about how Sony will leverage Alamo Drafthouse to promote its own movies and video games. Will they host more game-show style experiences using their TV expertise (Sony owns “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune”)? Will they use it to promote their video game releases? Could we see more Crunchyroll features — Sony’s anime streaming platform — on the big screen?

Or maybe the integration will spur a new era of movie industry monopolization, with the studio elbowing out competitors through exclusive contracts, the type of activity that concert behemoth Live Nation is currently being sued for by the Department of Justice.

Whatever the long-term outcome, the ownership change gives workers at Denver’s Drafthouse locations a reason to be cautiously — very cautiously — optimistic.

“It doesn’t change our game plan too much, but we are hopeful that there is potential for collaboration with Sony’s other unions, and that we can maybe enter a less hostile negotiation,” Miller said. “But we were already prepared to deal with an overly hostile, consistently evil, corporate overlord. Our strategy is to still be prepared for the worst.”