POLITICS
Page
House veteran makes run in District 38
5
LOCAL
Page
Riot Fest causing unrest in eastern Arapahoe
Robert Bowen, the nowCentennial resident, is waging a challenge to two-term incumbent state Rep. Kathleen Conti in south metro’s District 38.
6
At issue are two special-use permits for May Farms property – and most controversially, a special short-term “agri-tainment permit for Riot Fest.
Volume 32 • Number 33 • July 10, 2014
www.villagerpublishing.com
FLEURISH
Pages
Flower Girls presented at Yellow Rose Ball
12-13
The traditional Yellow Rose Waltz began with the Flower Girls dancing with their fathers and escorts as mothers and guests looked on.
303-773-8313 • Published every Thursday
Index
Page 4........................................ Opinion Page 8......................... Service Directory Page 9................................... Classifieds Pages 12 - 21.............................Fleurish Pages 22 - 29...............................Legals TheVillagerNewspaper
@VillagerDenver
Git yer hide to the Turkey Leg-Wine Hoedown Ya might be a redneck if y’all do that By Peter Jones f you build it, they will come. Such would seem the motto of Greg Reinke, the president of Historic Downtown Littleton Merchants who has promoted his neighborhood with a range of oddball events – from the vaudeville-inspired Pumpkin Follies and Goat Show to the Littleton Zombie Crawl and its accompanying pig roast. Sure, anyone could dream up a weekend of redneck kitsch or a golf-cart drive-in movie show, but few, but Reinke, would actually carry such things out. Although the decidedly lowbrow Turkey Leg-Wine Hoedown began as a one-off spoof of Littleton’s more pretentious elements, the hillbilly-inspired fete has become a much-awaited annual fixture on the downtown calendar. The Hoedown mixes such uncultured attractions as miniature golf with crutches and a Flintstones-like bowling game with frozen turkeys instead of bowling balls. Other offbeat draws include the Amazon Tree House Bar run by women over six feet tall and a paddleboat pond manned by dwarves (two sisters who happen
I
to be distant cousins to Elvis Presley). This year, Reinke is presenting special guest Larrs Jackson, a veteran character actor who plays Old MacDonald, a spelling-bee contestant who spells cow C-OW-E-E-I-O in a recent commercial for GEICO insurance. [See accompanying interview.] The Villager recently asked Reinke about the eccentric Hoedown, which takes place Friday and Saturday, July 18-19, in the Reinke Bros. parking lot. Villager: So you’ve got a guest celebrity of sorts? Reinke: I saw that commercial and I laughed so hard. I said that would be awesome to have him be the guest celebrity. So I talked to a couple of agents and they told me it was Larrs Jackson and gave me his home phone number. I called him and told him what we were doing and he started laughing and said, that sounds like the funniest, craziest thing I’ve ever heard. So we made arrangements. Villager: What else is new this year? Reinke: I did not know this, but there is a square-dancing club Continued on page 2
Y’all come back now, ya hear! Greg Reinke, left, president of Historic Downtown Littleton Merchants, is again organizing the Turkey Leg-Wine Hoedown, July 18-19. At right is former Littleton City Attorney Suzanne Staiert at last year’s event. File photo
Littleton bans recreational pot businesses Citizen initiative considered likely
By Peter Jones Littleton has joined much of the rest of Arapahoe County in smoking out recreational-marijuana businesses. The City Council voted last week, 4-3, to prohibit most of the sale, cultivation and manufacture of the controversial plant and its associated products. The decision will have no impact on Littleton’s four medical-marijuana dispensaries. District 4 Councilwoman Debbie Brinkman, who voted with the majority at the July 1 meeting, says the industry does not fit well with the city’s overall visioning. “We do surveys of residents and the priorities continue to be open space, schools, parks, the
sense of community, the cute downtown. I don’t see how pot fits into any of that,” she said. “We started our meeting with crabapple trees and we ended with whether we should put retail marijuana on Main Street. Which Littleton do you want?” Some on council wanted more time to let residents answer that question, especially in a city where voters narrowly approved Amendment 64, the 2012 ballot initiative that effectively legalized marijuana in Colorado. Mayor Phil Cernanec, who voted against the council’s ban, says elected leaders should have taken more time to consider their options and thinks they may have missed an opportunity to mitigate the eventual legalization of pot shops, which could still be approved by citizen initiative without council input.
For one example of a potential outcome, while the city limits the signs and even the business names used by medical dispensaries, Littleton voters could potentially approve a more permissive measure for recreational sellers with no such restrictions. “We’ve had no issues with the medical-marijuana centers and I would like us not to lose the capacity to [legalize recreational businesses as a City Council], rather than face what could come up in a citizen referendum,” Cernanec said. “It’s not scientific polling, but I think [the vote] would be very close based on my conversations with folks. The community is closely divided.” If the citizens or the council ever decide to permit recreationalmarijuana businesses, Littleton voters have already authorized a sales tax for them to collect. The
just-in-case referendum written by the council was approved by about 70 percent of the city’s electorate last November. Even if Littleton’s marijuana supporters take matters into their own hands at the ballot box, Brinkman says she would stand by her support for the ban. “If [pot advocates present an initiative] that’s very freewheeling and loosey-goosey, they have to get voter approval of that,” she said. “I don’t want to be a leader in trying to figure out how to make this work in my community.” Regardless of the council’s interest in experimenting, Cernanec says he is certain Littleton has not heard the last of the recreationalmarijuana industry. “The council has spoken and that’s where we are at the moment, but I think it is something that will become inevitable,” he said.