City Cast Denver

Ever since Coloradans started taking the prospect of legal weed seriously, stoners have wanted a place to partake in public. The city of Denver opened permits for public consumption businesses a few years ago, but the regulations were so restrictive that only one business was ever able to open. But after last year’s sweeping revamp of our weed laws, a wave of new ganjapreneurs have come forward with proposals for how they’d want a public weed lounge to look and feel — and, more importantly, where one could actually open. It’s a new era of legal weed, and it’s begging the age-old question: if not here, where? Producer Paul Karolyi stumbled upon a red-hot neighborhood battle over one proposed weed lounge a few weeks ago. Today on the show, he breaks it down with producer Xandra McMahon and host Bree Davies. Stay tuned to the show next week for part two of our look at the fight over 1800 S. Broadway. In the meantime, we want to hear from you! Are you excited to smoke weed in public? Would you want a weed lounge in your neighborhood? And how do you feel about the debate over this one in particular? Text or leave us a voicemail at (720) 500-5418‬, and we might share your thoughts on the show!No weekend plans? No problem. Peyton’s got a rundown of all the cool stuff happening in Denver this weekend in our newsletter today: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Share your hot takes on 1800 S. Broadway with us on Twitter: @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daylight Saving Time. Love it or hate it, it’s part of our lives… but if a new law passes in Colorado, it might change our concept of time forever. The bill already passed Colorado’s House of Representatives, and now the Senate is considering adopting DST year round, meaning we would never have to change our clocks again. But how would this impact our days? What does it mean for our sunrises and sunsets? And why do our ski resorts care so much about it? Today on the show, host Bree Davies took these questions to our resident weather expert, meteorologist Andy Stein, who researched everything we wanted to know about the fight over Daylight Saving Time. A whole lot of news broke over the last few days, and City Cast Denver newsletter writer Peyton Garcia has a round-up— read and subscribe: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Give us your Daylight Saving Time hot takes via Twitter: @citycastdenverWe’re hiring a producer to help make City Cast Denver! If you love Denver and know your way around an .mp3, let’s talk. Email questions to paul.karolyi@citycast.fm and check out the job listing here: https://citycast.fm/audio-producer-city-cast-denver/Looking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Janae Burris used to fudge the numbers when people asked how long she’s been doing stand-up comedy. “I kind of stopped doing that, though,” she told the Denver Post earlier this week. “I’ve gotten to the point in my [career] that I can tell people the truth and still get jobs.” But now that the stand-up scene is finally creeping back after two years of terrible comedy over the internet, Burris is on the precipice of great change: She’s eight and a half months pregnant. To document this unique moment, she’s recording her first big comedy special in front of a live audience at the Aurora Fox Arts Center next week, and she’s on the show today to talk with host Bree Davies about being funny while pregnant.Learn more about Burris’ special, “Long Overdue,” and get your tickets to the taping here: https://www.aurorafoxartscenter.org/janae-burris-is-long-overdueMaybe you heard that election denier and My Pillow Guy, Mike Lindell, was on the steps of the Capitol yesterday for an election conspiracy rally? Peyton Garcia has more on that event, and all the other news you need to get through your day in the CCD newsletter. Subscribe here: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Let’s be friends on Twitter! @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It might be a false spring, but can you blame us for letting a little nice weather get us excited for camping season?! Some of us, at least. Host Bree Davies has never been super outdoorsy, and all the gatekeeping around the best spots and the reports of overcrowding at our state and national parks don’t make it seem that appealing. So we invited Blackpackers founder and outdoors educator Patricia Cameron to help make it all feel a little more approachable. Check out this piece Cameron published in 2019 about her journey to the outdoors: https://www.elevationoutdoors.com/go-outside/feet-to-the-ground/One of Denver’ biggest companies is going to court. Learn all about dialysis giant DaVita and the eccentric former CEO at the center of the case in today’s CCD newsletter: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/What are your favorite hikes or campsites? Let’s swap notes on Twitter: @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“There is no accurate picture” of how many indigenous people have been murdered or gone missing in Colorado, according to our guest today, Raven Payment. Amid a growing, international movement to address the crisis of MMIR — Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives — she helped form a task force to take on the issue locally. Step one? Push for legislation to create a state office that can figure out exactly how big this problem even is. Today on the show, Host Bree Davies talks with Payment, who identifies as Kanien'kehá:ka and Anishinaabe, about her work on the task force and how the creation of this office could help Indigenous people all across Colorado. Our guest Raven Payment mentions a couple of times how the Urban Indian Health Institute’s 2017 report on MMRI was a catalyst for organizing around this issue. If you’re interested, here’s a link to that report: https://www.uihi.org/resources/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-girls/30,000 hippies are descending on an as-yet-undisclosed location in Colorado this summer. It’s an annual event called the Rainbow Gathering, and it’s got lots of folks really worried. Catch up on the whole backstory in today’s newsletter: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Hang out with us on Twitter! We’re at @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Union Station is a mess. At least that’s what news outlets keep saying about the transit hub and fancy downtown hangout. In the last six months, complaints of violence, open drug use, and people sleeping in the public space have become the narrative of Union Station, painting it as a scene of constant chaos. At the beginning of 2022, Mayor Hancock responded by swarming the place with police — as a result, he said that DPD had made 700 arrests since January. The City Cast Denver crew hadn’t made a trek down to the shiny train station since before the pandemic, and knew it was time to see for themselves what was going on there. Host Bree Davies and producers Paul Karolyi and Xandra McMahon met up with Denverite reporter Kyle Harris — who has covered issues at Union Station extensively — for a walk around the downtown spot. They wanted to see for themselves what, exactly, was so concerning. Read more of Kyle Harris’s original reporting on Union Station for Denverite: We spent 18 hours at Union Station. Here’s everything we saw and heard.A swanky Union Station high rise holds clues about how the rich and poor will coexist (or not) downtownDenver police have arrested more than 700 people at Union Station this year — only a third for drug crimesJust a note: Street sweeping starts today! Find out when to avoid that parking ticket in your neighborhood and more in today’s City Cast Denver newsletter. Read and subscribe: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Say hello on Twitter: @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

News broke last week that local music non-profit Youth on Record was buying a stake in the Underground Music Showcase, one of Denver’s biggest annual music festivals. But this is far from any run-of-the-mill music biz deal: YOR’s Executive Director, Jami Duffy, sees the UMS as a platform to propel a “musicians’ middle class” in Denver and beyond. Today on the show, Duffy chats with host Bree Davies about her long-term plans to turn a staple Denver music fest into a pipeline for careers in the arts, while also cultivating a better experience for music fans.Read and sign up for the City Cast Denver newsletter, where today, Peyton Garcia tells the story of how the modern day coffee break has its origins in a labor dispute that happened in CO: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Tell us your favorite UMS stories on Twitter: @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The push to unionize Starbucks workers started in Buffalo, New York, with one small group of baristas stepping forward to call for better working conditions at their cafe. Then slowly, one by one, workers at more than 120 Starbucks locations across the country petitioned for union elections at their shops, including here in Denver, where three separate Starbucks are now in the middle of organizing campaigns. Host Bree Davies sits down with two baristas — Jack Janzen and Hannah Mehlman — to hear why they’re trying to unionize their Starbucks at Leetsdale and Holly, and how the coffee giant is pushing back. WE’RE HIRING! We are looking for an audio producer who loves Denver as much as we do! We’re looking for someone who wants to help us continue to tell beautiful, complicated, compelling stories about the people and things that make this city what it is. Think you or someone you know fits the bill? Take a peek at the official job posting here.In today’s newsletter, Peyton has all the juicy gossip about the Outdoor Retailer show leaving Colorado and heading back to Utah. Find that newsletter and subscribe to future ones here: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/By the way, tell us what you think of the newsletter! Fill out this short survey and get entered to win two tickets to RadioLab’s Jad Abumrad live at the Paramount Theatre. https://denver.citycast.fm/survey/Let’s connect on Twitter: @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With fentanyl-related deaths spiking across Colorado, our elected officials have been debating new measures to better protect people from the highly potent, synthetic opioid. Should they go after drug users who are at risk of unwittingly taking a lethal dose? Should they focus on dealers and manufacturers who lace their goods with fentanyl? And what are the roles of “overdose prevention sites” and harm reduction, a strategy borne from the failures of the war on drugs? Now that they’ve formally submitted their bill at the state legislature, it’s time to dig in. Host Bree Davies sits down with Harm Reduction Action Center’s executive director Lisa Raville to break down the policy and politics around the new Fentanyl Accountability and Prevention Act.For additional perspectives on this new bill, Peyton has got a deep dive in our newsletter today. Read and subscribe here: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/And if you’d like a more thorough breakdown of the fentanyl situation, Harm Reduction Action Center and Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition co-published a brief, titled “Fentanyl in Colorado: Overview and recommendations for addressing the overdose crisis.” Don’t let another day go by without RTing a great Denver tweet and tagging @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Too often there’s inherent bias at play when we think about who makes a good firefighter — strong, athletic… manly. “I think that we forget sometimes that the people we are serving like to see a familiar face when they're having their worst day,” says Kathleen Vredenburgh, who wants people to know that firefighting requires a lot more than just physical strength. She was named deputy chief of Denver Fire last month, making her the highest ranking woman in the fire department’s 156-year history. Today on the show, Host Bree Davies talks with Vredenburgh about her experience as a firefighter and her work getting other women to join the department.In today’s newsletter, City Cast Denver’s Peyton Garcia breaks down the $14 million settlement protesters won in an excessive force case against DPD. Read and subscribe: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Catch us on Twitter: @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices