That much is clear after watching a 90-minute documentary called “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!,” which follows the co-creator of “South Park” and partner Matt Stone on a journey to reopen the beloved Lakewood restaurant they visited as kids growing up in Colorado.

The film has so far only played at prestigious events like Tribeca Film Festival and Telluride Film Festival, but locals will get to see it first when it comes to the Alamo Drafthouse Sloan’s Lake starting on Sept. 6. It then rolls out to select theaters across the U.S. and will stream on Paramount+ this fall.

“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” is a must-see for Denver-area fans not only because the landmark is a local one, but also because it’s hard to fathom just how decrepit the building was after decades of neglect.

“Have you ever seen ‘Kitchen Nightmares’? It’s the very, very worst one of those you could possibly ever imagine,” Parker told The Denver Post in 2022.

When viewers see the dirt clogging the air vents and tumbling out of air ducts, metal posts rotting to become structurally unsound, and the layers of grime and fire damage throughout the kitchen, it’s easy to understand why Casa Bonita’s renovation took nearly two years. That’s even before you consider construction woes teams on the ground encountered, such as a 5,000-gallon-per-day leak in the new pool and having to redo a shoddy job on the kitchen floor.

“This is the single most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen,” the construction manager says in one clip, pointing to a narrow hole in the ground flanked by electrical boxes where cliff divers exit the pool.

It cost Stone and Parker an estimated $40 million-plus to, as they prefer to say, “restore” Casa Bonita. No level of business savvy could ever sign off on that type of project. It requires blind passion.

“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” highlights how Parker was enchanted by and mildly obsessed with the Pink Palace from a young age. His father, Randy Parker, says in the movie that when the family visited Casa Bonita, the younger Parker would run around talking about what he’d change to improve the experience. In one prophetic clip from 2012, the “Book of Mormon” cast visits Casa Bonita and Stone jokes about how Parker may one day own the place.

Director Arthur Bradford and producer Jennifer Ollman aptly capture the Colorado culture surrounding the venue by visiting the annual Casa Bonita-themed art show NEXT Gallery and following the incessant media coverage about its promised reopening. As the deadline to open the doors draws closer, they interview fans who are camped out in the parking lot in hopes of being the first to dine there.

Denver Chef Dana “Loca” Rodriguez plays a starring role as the resolute leader of kitchen operations and it’s a joy to watch her at work, especially when she’s using the colorful language characteristic of a conventional “South Park” episode.

There are other little details in “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” to delight dedicated locals. For example, the documentary follows the restaurant’s construction in the 1970s and sets the record straight about the original color. (It’s “dusty pink,” according to one of its leading designers.) It also offers deep insight into Parker’s creative vision for the new and improved Casa Bonita.

The film is funny, of course, but it’s also heartfelt. As excitement builds for the grand reopening, it becomes clear the owners feel the weight of the public’s expectations. Fear about the concept not working is palpable from everyone involved. (Though as the documentary shows, that was a common sentiment in 1974 when Casa Bonita first opened, too.) Parker and Stone appear terrified to let fans down.

The good news is we know how this story ends. Casa Bonita reopened to much fanfare in 2023 and has since served about half a million guests, most of whom have shared rave reviews. In a post-screening panel at the Telluride Film Festival, Parker said Casa Bonita is not yet profitable, but the fact reservations open to everyone soon should help. The release of “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” may also go a long way, as it inspired excitement to visit among many viewers.

The biggest takeaway from the film, however, should be that anyone will get to visit at all. It underscores the reality that Casa Bonita would have probably remained closed forever – relegated to a distant, cliff-diving, sopapilla-serving memory – without Stone and Parker’s intervention.

“No one would have done it the way we did because it didn’t make any sense and it wasn’t smart,” Stone says in the documentary. “I’m really proud.”

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The company is expanding to Phoenix under the moniker Formation Brewing., said CEO Robert MacEachern. Construction is currently underway on an existing 10,000-square-foot building in an art district called Roosevelt Row. He anticipates it will open before the end of 2024.

The expansion to Arizona enables the 13-year-old beer maker to build a regional presence while also helping grow the local craft beer scene there, MacEachern said. He sees many similarities between Denver and Phoenix – including vibrant communities centered around music, art and the outdoors – that make the latter city an attractive destination for expansion.

Plus, there’s plenty of opportunity for growth in the beer market, MacEachern said. “The maturity of the Denver market is about five years ahead of Phoenix. We see a lot of opportunities to really drive our brand.”

The crux of that strategy is embedding in the local culture and community, and creating products with “Phoenix flair,” he added. That’s why the company opted to start Formation Brewing instead of opening a satellite DBC location with “Denver” in the name.

When it opens, Formation’s facility will house a 10-barrel brewhouse turning out a variety of styles of feed the onsite bars’ 24 draft taps. It will also have six serving tanks plus additional beverage options like hard lemonade and wine. Formation’s core lineup will consist of four beers: a West Coast-style India pale ale, a pilsner, a hazy IPA and fruited ale with peach. Those will likely also be available in cans and sold to-go from the taproom.

DBC, which has five taprooms in Denver, Arvada and Littleton, is known for creating large gathering spaces, and Formation will be no different. The taproom will include an indoor-outdoor patio and a roughly 3,000-square-foot mezzanine with a bar and seating. The kitchen there will serve burgers, sandwiches and salads, as well as Detroit-style pizza using local ingredients.

“Nothing says drink a few beers like pizza,” MacEachern said.

Once open, Formation Brewing hopes to become a community hub and participate in neighborhood events like First Friday, when live music echoes from nearly every street corner. Eventually, it hopes to begin distributing packaged beer throughout the market.

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Lorelei Cloud was born in 1967, three years before Native Americans living on tribal lands in Colorado were guaranteed the right to vote. Even once she turned 18, and for many years thereafter, she did not vote. Her polling place was in Durango, miles from the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Reservation, where she lived, and she had no car with which to access registration services or to cast a ballot. Politicians seldom visited her area, and hardly seemed to represent her interests, anyway.

Cloud is now vice chair of the Southern Ute tribal council, and from the tribe’s headquarters early this summer, she reflected on how much has changed. Since 2019, when Democrats gained a legislative trifecta in the state, Colorado has established a polling place on the reservation and placed a drop box there for mail ballots. The state has also hired special liaisons to promote and facilitate turnout among Native voters. “I don’t want future generations to have to deal with any of what we’ve had to, to get to vote,” Cloud told me. “We should have access to the vote, to shape our own region, our own country.”

Colorado officials are now proposing to go further. In 2023, the state adopted legislation to try something that’s never been done in this country: automatically register tribal members to vote in U.S. elections.

The program, if implemented, would enable tribes to share their membership lists with Colorado elections officials, who’d then use that information to register every eligible person to vote, while giving them a chance to opt out. Since Colorado already mails ballots to every registered voter, this would necessarily mean getting ballots into the hands of more Native people. “We’ve made real steps forward, and we’re going to continue,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold told me recently. “We always try to push the envelope.”

Cloud, like Griswold, sees immense promise in this plan. When she testified in favor of the law last year, she said Colorado “serves as a model for other states to increase voting among tribal members.” And advocates living in those other states are watching. Several told me Colorado’s reform could be transformative if it spreads nationwide: Roughly one third of the more than six million Native Americans who are eligible to vote across the country are not registered, a share far greater than that of white Americans who are unregistered.

And yet, Cloud is also keenly concerned that the program could make her community more vulnerable. For U.S. election officials to automatically register tribal members to vote, the tribes would need to share certain vital information about their members, such as full name, address, and date of birth. Cloud is hesitant to hand this data over to a state that has, over a long history that she knows too well, been an agent of violence.

“When tribes have given out too much information, that information has been exploited,” Cloud said, nodding to U.S. government and industry having used tribal data and maps to locate natural resources and justify land theft, among other harms. “We have to maintain trust and we have to protect tribal members and their information.”

It’s a worry that other tribal leaders and advocates for Native voting rights echoed in conversations this spring and summer. “We’ve had our lists, our populations, kept by the government before–and that hasn’t ended well for us,” Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, a member of the ​​Tohono O’odham Nation and the top elections official in Pima County, Arizona, told me.

Anticipating that data-sharing would generate concerns, Colorado legislators wrote the law to make the program optional: Tribes can opt in, only if and when they feel comfortable with it. Griswold says she is in no rush to implement this program until tribes want it.

Cloud and other representatives of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, along with leaders of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, their western neighbors, have held ongoing discussions with Griswold’s staff to share their concerns, and work out whether acceptable compromises can be found. They’ve met about 10 times over the last year, exploring what safeguards could be put in place.

Those talks haven’t yet yielded any agreement, though the parties seem cautiously optimistic. The chair of the Ute Mountain Utes even says a breakthrough could come as soon as this year.

Cloud, too, hopes to reach an agreement, but she remains wary. The day we met at the Southern Ute headquarters happened to fall exactly 100 years to the week since Native Americans gained U.S. citizenship. That landmark, Cloud said, at once seems distant and shamefully fresh. “We are the first and original residents of this entire continent,” she told me, standing in a temporary exhibit the tribe set up to commemorate the 100-year anniversary. “The first ones here, and the last to have citizenship.”

We were speaking amid what was, as recently as 1868, a Ute territory of more than 56 million acres. It covered most of what is now the state of Colorado, plus large portions of what are now Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

Her tribe today controls less than one percent of that area, a sliver of reservation land near Durango, in southwest Colorado along the New Mexico border. Colorado was once home to more than 40 tribal nations, but just two recognized tribes–the Southern Utes, and the Ute Mountain Utes—are still based here. Cloud thinks constantly about how to protect the 1,500 people enrolled in her tribe, and what remains of their land.

“When the Europeans came in, and our homelands were greatly reduced, you get a disconnection between humans and nature,” she said. “You get traumatic experiences, and trust issues that Native people have with the United States government.”

This tribe’s journey is a familiar one in the broader story of Native American betrayal: members killed or otherwise oppressed at the hands of white settlers; a United States government that encroached gradually, agreeing to and then violating treaties in order to steal land and resources; and eventually tribes shunted by the government onto the reservations they inhabit today.

In various ways, and with varying levels of success, Colorado’s state government has lately been trying, or at least saying it’s trying, to repair this harm. The legislature here has, in the last few years, passed a series of laws and resolutions intended to improve education, water rights, public safety, and more, for Native people living in this state.

Colorado’s new voter registration reform also came out of that repair work. Proponents see it as a valuable step toward making American democracy more inclusive of the land’s original inhabitants. “Historical voter suppression in Colorado has been against Native people and Native people living on tribal lands,” Griswold said. “Understanding that there is this historical backdrop, I’ve really tried to pursue any means to reverse that historical voter suppression and get eligible people registered.”

The state of Colorado already registers citizens to vote automatically, but only at the DMV, when they’re getting a driver’s license or state ID. The program has been wildly successful at signing up new voters, but voting rights advocates worry that it’s leaving behind people who do not go to the DMV and apply for an ID–including many who live on reservations.

The new law expands this automatic approach to tribal enrollment lists. This reform would reach tribal members wherever they may reside, and most Native Americans do not live on reservations. Those who do stand to be most affected, experts said, because they are more likely to be unregistered.

Cloud said she’s all-in on continuing to make voting easier for the tribe, and stressed that she appreciates Griswold’s efforts to build relationships with tribal leaders. But in conversation, she also laid out the difficulties in reconciling her different goals.

“How do we protect our sovereignty? How do we protect our tribal members?” Cloud asked.

And how, she added, can tribal leaders embed those aims within the mechanics of voter registration?

As she pondered these questions, Cloud received an alert on her phone and paused our interview. A Southern Ute member had been reported missing–a 15-year-old girl, the alert stated, last seen a couple of days prior outside the reservation.

Cloud wondered if the girl might already be in New Mexico, or even farther from home. She listed her worries aloud: “Has anybody reached out to her family?”

“What has been done to try to contact her?”

“Have they contacted the neighboring counties, the neighboring states?”

“Do they have the right description of her?”

Whenever this happens, and it happens shockingly often–the girl is the third person to go missing from the reservation in a month, amid a national crisis of missing and murdered girls and women that disproportionately plagues indigenous communities—Cloud thinks of her friend Nicole, who vanished from the area two years ago. For days, Cloud told me, authorities assured Nicole’s loved ones that she’d turn up quickly. “Come to find out,” Cloud said, “she’d been murdered in the first day.”

Cloud resumed our interview. With her mind still on the missing girl, she brought the conversation back to registration policies.

“This actually ties in with the voting: It’s the safety of our members,” she said.

“Knowing our tribal information is out there, we become very vulnerable,” she continued. “People don’t place value on tribal lives. This is very real.”

* * *

Three other states besides Colorado–Michigan, Nevada, and New Mexico—have also adopted laws lately to automatically register Native American tribal members to vote; their reforms, too, have yet to be implemented. Like Colorado, these other states give tribes the option to enter into the program but don’t force it upon them. To date, no tribe in any of these states has agreed to do so.

But at least one tribe may be close to such an agreement: the Ute Mountain Utes, whose reservation is bigger than that of the Southern Utes in both land area and enrolled population, could move on this matter soon by entering into an agreement with Colorado’s government, says their chairman, Manuel Heart.

Sitting in his office on the reservation, Heart echoed some of Cloud’s concerns about how sharing tribal enrollment lists could infringe on tribal privacy and sovereignty. But, after much discussion with the state, he said, he feels ready to get started. He hopes to bring the issue to a vote of the tribe’s elected council soon.

Our interview took place in early June, still weeks away from the state’s June 25 primary. His mail ballot was sitting on his desk as we talked; he’d already filled it out and was keen to cast it as soon as possible.

Heart said his tribe, like the Southern Utes, has benefitted from other, recent reforms meant to facilitate Native voter participation: the Ute Mountain Utes now have a drop box on their reservation, plus an in-person polling center for anyone who’d rather vote that way.

The officials who run elections in this area are proud of these voter services, but acknowledge that turnout remains very low on Ute Mountain Ute land.

Danielle Wells, the elections supervisor in Montezuma County, showed me a map of the area and pointed to where her staff places drop boxes, in all the county’s major towns. In the runup to elections, five of the six boxes yield hundreds of ballots each time elections workers swing by to collect from them, she said. In the drop box on the reservation, though, “we see maybe 20, maybe a dozen,” Wells told me.

The June 25 primary would go on to draw especially low participation: Only 3 percent of registered voters living on Ute Mountain Ute land cast a ballot, according to the clerk’s office, a rate nine times lower than that of Montezuma County voters overall.

The gap isn’t usually that wide, but it’s always there. During the 2020 presidential election, for example, turnout on Ute Mountain Ute land was 50 percent, trailing Montezuma County’s overall turnout of 85 percent. In 2022, when Colorado was electing a governor and other major officeholders, turnout on Ute Mountain Ute land was 22 percent–three times lower than the county’s overall rate. A large turnout gap also persists on Southern Ute land, and studies show that this holds true for Native Americans across the country.

Heart badly wants to increase turnout, but doesn’t fault his tribe’s membership for so often declining to vote. Would you be excited, he asked, to participate in elections that shape a political system so historically hostile to your community, to elect representatives of a government that has stolen from and broken promises to tribes?

“How is a tribal member going to feel when they’ve always been pushed away?” Heart said. “It wasn’t our choice to be put on these reservations. The United States government put us here.”

To this day, in many other states, tribes are still constantly trying to beat back new restrictions–strict voter ID requirements that don’t accommodate tribal ID cards, gerrymandered maps that dilute their representation, inconvenient polling places, and other policies that make it particularly hard for Native Americans, and especially those living on reservations, to have a say in U.S. democracy.

Expansive reforms like automatic voter registration for tribal members remain a political non-starter in many states with large Native populations. “Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska would not do that,” Ahtza Dawn Chavez, who runs a non-profit in New Mexico that promotes Native voter participation, told me, naming four states currently under full Republican control. “You have to lay down a solid foundation, and [automatic voter registration] is something that is maybe stage two or three or four of that work. In a lot of states, you’re still at stage one.”

In Arizona, for example, voting rights advocates have spent years fighting restrictions, proposed by Republicans, that could make voting harder for Native people. Arizonans in 2022 narrowly rejected a ballot measure that would have made voter ID laws more stringent; Native voters would have suffered the brunt of those proposed rules.

Cázares-Kelly, the elections official in Pima County, bemoans the many hurdles that already suppress the Native vote in her state of Arizona. Notably, she told me, it can be challenging for Native folks who live on reservations to register to vote because homes there often don’t have addresses in the format typical of non-reservation lands–that is, number, street name, city, state, zip code.

“The home where I grew up, I cannot give you the address for it,” Cázares-Kelly said. “I can tell you where it is: south off of Highway 86 onto Indian Route 15, you turn right at the red fence, drive down the dirt road. There’s a fork in the road and you take a left. Our house is the first one by the big tree. That’s literally my address.”

Since getting elected in 2021, she has found that even well-meaning officials commonly have little understanding of why voter engagement campaigns and election policies that work for most of the population may not work for people who live on reservations.

In Colorado, both the Ute Mountain Utes and the Southern Utes report that voter turnout is often substantially higher for their internal elections, which are administered entirely by the tribes. Neither syncs their tribal elections with Colorado’s; the Ute Mountain Utes vote on a Friday in October and the Southern Utes vote on a Friday in November.

On the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, Chairman Heart said, few talk much, if at all, about U.S. and Colorado elections. The land is so far removed from Colorado’s population center–it’s a roughly seven-hour drive to Denver, and is in fact much closer to Albuquerque—that for decades both the Southern Utes and Ute Mountain Utes were placed in New Mexico media markets, meaning they’d receive broadcast political advertising meant for that state and not theirs.

Only in the last decade or so have political candidates started regularly visiting the area. “They hardly ever came,” Heart said. “And once they got elected, they never came.”

Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the first and still only person of Native American descent to represent Colorado in Congress, and one of only four Native people ever elected to the U.S. Senate, feels this acutely, because for four decades he has lived on a ranch on the Southern Ute reservation.

He is 91 now, and from an armchair in his home, he, too, said U.S. government officials have broadly and consistently failed Native people on policy concerning elections and voting.

“It’s pretty difficult to ask a people who you’ve dominated, whose wealth you’ve taken over the years, to suddenly help support you getting elected. That’s a long jump,” he told me. “Unless you can show somebody how voting is going to help them, they’ll have a lower interest in it.”

Nighthorse Campbell is bullish on automatic voter registration but understands why tribes may not trust elections officials with their membership data. “It’s not going to take a week or two. It takes years, and years, and years. And maybe it’ll never be universal,” he said.

* * *

The ongoing negotiations between the Ute tribes and the state of Colorado over automatic voter registration affect only a tiny fraction of the country’s nearly 600 federally recognized tribes. These two tribes combined have enrollments of under 4,000 people; a successful implementation of the pending reform in Colorado may only lead to a few hundred new registrations at first, and many fewer each subsequent year.

But Allison Neswood, a lawyer with the Native American Rights Fund and an expert on issues of Native voting rights, says there are many eyes on these negotiations around the country. The outcome of the state’s talks with the two tribes could set a landmark precedent stretching much beyond Colorado, she told me, if the parties can identify solutions that satisfy all their goals.

“Once one tribe, two tribes, three tribes start to get the ball moving on this, and show that there’s a way to do this in a way that’s respectful of and promoting of tribal sovereignty, and that’s protective of data sovereignty, I think more tribes will feel more comfortable diving in and looking for their own approach,” Neswood said.

Voter registration laws created a hurdle to voting when they emerged in the U.S. starting in the 1870s, forcing people to declare an intent to vote before they could cast a ballot. These laws, then and often still today, have depressed turnout among people with fewer resources and less familiarity with the political process. To alleviate this burden, Oregon in 2015 became the first U.S. state to adopt automatic voter registration; the policy has since spread to about half of all states. It’s typically implemented at DMVs, for a couple of simple reasons: One, the vast majority of the population visits these offices on a somewhat regular basis, and, two, the offices already collect all the information necessary to determine voter eligibility. But some states are trying to expand it to other government settings to reach even more people–especially lower-income residents less likely to visit the DMV.

Several states, including Colorado, want to try this out at Medicaid offices, and, last year, Michigan became the first state to approve automatically registering people as they leave prison.

Extending this program to tribal enrollment lists comes from the same desire to make sure fewer people fall through the DMV’s cracks.

Colorado’s reform passed as part of a broader bill to facilitate voting in the state, for instance by expanding ballot access on college campuses. That bill was sponsored by Democrats, and passed with their unanimous support, while most Republicans were in opposition. New Mexico’s reform also passed last year with largely Democratic support, and was also part of a large bill meant to ease voter access. Nevada (in 2021) and Michigan (in 2023) both included tribal enrollment lists in laws meant to expand automatic registration generally.

But unlike efforts to implement automatic voter registration in other settings, the process that’s ongoing in Colorado, Cloud says, requires deep reflection. It invites the state to confront its history of violence and prove to the tribes that the government can be trusted.

Barbara McLachlan, the state representative for southwest Colorado, whose district includes reservation land of both of Colorado’s Ute tribes, says she understands this caution. “We’re trying to turn a cruise ship,” she told me over coffee in downtown Durango. “It takes time, little by little. There is a generational lack of trust; they’ve been treated horribly, and still are, in some ways.”

When she entered office, eight years ago, she did not know how to even broach the subject of collaboration with Native residents she represented. She said it took years, and regular outreach, to build credibility with the tribes. Both Heart and Cloud say they appreciate her work, and name her as one of few people in state government with any consistent presence on their lands.

Prompted by a bill McLachlan sponsored, state government since 2023 has invited Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute leaders to deliver annual addresses to a joint session of the legislature–a platform these leaders have so far used to highlight lingering injustice and inequity in matters of water access, health care, and more. But McLachlan, who is term-limited and exiting office in January, laments that her colleagues in state government mostly still fail to do the sort of relationship-building that might have made it easier to jumpstart automatic voter registration by now. After eight years in the legislature, she told me, she only knows of one state House lawmaker, besides those already based in the region, who has visited either reservation.

“It’s hard, then, to say, ‘trust me on this one,’” she said, of the voter registration proposal.

To reach that trust now, Cloud and Heart both want concrete assurances that state elections officials can provide enough data protections for their membership lists.

Tribal and state leaders each said they’re still unsure of which policy mechanics might emerge from their negotiation. Tiffany Lee, the La Plata County clerk, who oversees U.S. elections on most Southern Ute land, has not been involved with that negotiation, but, in an interview at her Durango office, she floated a possible solution: The state could seal the personal information of anyone who is registered to vote off a tribal enrollment list. (This is also a solution proposed by Neswood in a policy paper she authored recently.) Colorado, like other states, already offers this option for anyone who wants their information to be confidential. That route is popular with public figures, judges, cops, and others who want an extra layer of protection.

The catch, Lee warned, is that sealing people’s records may make it harder for them to then update their voter registration down the line. If they move, or want to switch party affiliation, they’d have to pursue those steps in person at the clerk’s office, she said. “If we make them all confidential, that stops them from being able to do anything electronically with us, or by phone call,” Lee told me. “So, there are drawbacks.”

Jena Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state, is midway through her second and final term in this role. She said she hopes that these policy discussions are resolved in her time, but accepts that they may not be. “The people we’re talking to–them, or their parents, may have been excluded from the franchise in their lifetime. Sometimes things just take time,” she added.

At the Southern Ute headquarters, Cloud and I ambled through the exhibit that commemorated the tribe’s history and the 100-year citizenship anniversary. It contained photos of tribal members long deceased, and posters about the tribe’s relationships with water, land, and one another.

We were nearing the end of our time together, and the missing girl had thankfully just been safely located.

Cloud pointed to photos of her great-grandfather, her grandmother, her grandfather, her aunt, and other relatives. “Can you imagine what they had to give up?” she said. “You live in two different worlds as Ute people: You’re still very much wanting to be connected to your past and your nature, your language, your culture, your tradition–but you also have to be very aware of what’s going on in your community on the other side, the assimilation side.”

She reached the final piece of the gallery, a poster in the shape of a frame with nothing in the middle. Cloud said it represents the unknown things, exciting and daunting alike, yet to come for the tribe. She said she hopes automatic voter registration will be among them. “This is the future, and anything is possible from now,” she said, looking at the frame.

“We’ll get there with Jena, with the voting,” she added. “We’ll get there.”

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Through Monday. The state’s biggest cross-cultural gathering wraps up this weekend as Colorado State Fair & Rodeo launches its final concerts and rodeos. The agricultural-focused, family-friendly fest has daily programming such as the kids carnival, food and drink vendors, a sprawling art show, livestock displays and competitions, plus the Toughest Monster Truck Tour shows (Aug. 30-31); Demo Derby (Aug. 31); concerts from Trace Adkins (Aug. 30), Ludacris (Aug. 31) and Goo Goo Dolls (Sept. 2);

Concerts are $40-$65; other event prices vary. General admission tickets are $15 for adults, $7 for kids aged 5-12, free for 4 and under. Colorado State Fairgrounds, 1001 Beulah Ave. in Pueblo. Call 800-876-4567 or visit coloradostatefair.com for more.

World Art Drop Day

Tuesday. Take a few minutes — before school or work, or even on lunch break — to search for hidden original artworks on Tuesday, Sept. 3, during the return of World Art Drop Day. Sponsored by Denver Arts & Venues and other culture-boosters, the scavenger hunt drops clues on social media (search #artdropday in your city) to discovering free, handcrafted artworks — paintings, sculptures, enamel pins and more — hidden in public places as part of this quirky arts-engagement experiment.

For more specific clues on where to look (hint: parks and libraries are especially popular spots), search #ArtDropDenver2024, join facebook.com/groups/artdropdenver, or visit artsandvenuesdenver.com/programs/art-drop-day. Happy hunting!

Shiny art-rock bliss

Friday-Sunday. Colorado band Shiny Around the Edges doesn’t advertise its members, but there’s a chance you’d recognize them: singer/bassist Jennifer Seman and guitarist/singer Michael Seman are Ph.D. instructors and lecturers with Metropolitan State University and Colorado State University, respectively. That may not sound super punk-rock, but it does help explain their strange and compelling mix of ethereal vocals, precision drumming (courtesy Brandon Young) and thunderous, lacerating guitar, which creates an art-rock sound so lush it sounds hemispheres away from their Denton, Texas, beginnings two decades ago.

The experimental trio is celebrating the release of excellent new EP, “Activate the Rainbow,” with shows on Friday, Aug. 30, at 830 North in Fort Collins (chipperslanes.com); Saturday, Aug. 31, at Bar 404 in Denver (bar404broadway.com); and Sunday, Sept. 1, at What’s Left Records in Colorado Springs (whatsleftrec.com) — all with opener Moon Pussy (and, on Aug. 31, Church Fire). Prices vary. Visit facebook.com/shinyaroundtheedges for more.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer at RedLine

Friday. Speaking of experimental music: Pulitzer Prize winner Raven Chacon and Guillermo Galindo — both visual artists and composers — will play their new piece “Caesura” live at Redline Contemporary Art Center on Friday, Aug. 30, as part of the ongoing exhibition “The Other Side of the Tracks” (running through Oct. 6).

“Caesura” is a piece for percussion “created from detritus sourced from old pieces of railroad infrastructure,” organizers wrote, and features percussion by Shawn King of Denver’s DeVotchKa. The show is free to members with a $5 suggested donation for everyone else. 6-8 p.m. at 2350 Arapahoe St. in Denver. All ages. redlineart.org

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There were always exceptions on the annual Newman Center Presents season — it was never boring — but the community came to think of it as a place to see artistic standard bearers, acts that needed no introduction, like the Martha Graham Dance Company, or the London Symphony Chorus, or Dizzie Gillespie’s All-Star Big Band.

This year’s season, which is particularly tantalizing, shows how far the venue has come — and perhaps how far the tastes of Denver audiences have evolved and opened up. There are only a few acts on the schedule that most people here probably have heard of; instead, it’s a global fest of performers across art forms, geography and purpose.

It’s a challenging lineup, but also irresistible, starting Sept. 22 with season opener, Cécile McLorin Salvant, whose jazz vocalist repertoire includes songs in French, English and Haitian Kreyòl.

There are also acts, such as Vieux Farka Touré, a musician from Mali, who is known as “the Hendrix of the Sahara,” (on April 11); Music From The Sole, an ensemble that combines music and dance influenced by Afro-Brazilian, jazz, soul, house and Afro-Cuban styles (Jan. 25); and Zakir Hussain’s Masters of Percussion (March 18), whose bandleader expands traditions from his native India.

“I think the programming has evolved very naturally over the  20-plus years to reflect the society that we live in, and the very real conversations that are happening on- and off-stage,” said executive director Aisha Ahmad-Post, who curated the season.

For example, when Newman Center Presents began its work as part of the University of Denver, there were few female classical composers in the spotlight and few living composers that classical fans would show up for. This year, a season highlight is the appearance of Caroline Shaw, who is both alive and female and a top name in the classical composing business. She performs Nov. 9 with songwriter and storyteller Gabriel Kahane.

The cultural conversation has also become more inclusive, as the idea of “fine art” has grown to include classical practices from places beyond the U.S. and Europe.

That transition will be on display at Newman, too. There is one bedrock New York-based dance troupe on the schedule, the Limón Dance Company (Feb. 18), which has been at the vanguard of modern movement since it was founded by Jose Limón and Doris Humphrey in 1946.

But there is also Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, which has been developing its own style in Asia for the past 50 years (Nov. 23-24). Cloud Gate integrates elements of Chinese opera and tai chi into its modern dance using performers who learned their craft globally, including in the U.S.

“Cloud Gate is, interestingly, an extension of American contemporary dance,” said Ahmad-Post. “A lot of the dancers actually trained at Graham.”

Ahmad-Post builds the season by doing a lot of research, traveling to conferences, concerts and events internationally and identifying attractions she thinks people will like, and then doing the hard part of coordinating the schedules of popular performers, who tour relentlessly, with the open slots on the Newman Center stages.

She also has in mind, always, the center’s education mission. While its fare is a benefit for local audiences, the venue, at its core, is meant to serve   students in DU’s art programs.

Exposure to world-class performers is a must these days for colleges who want to attract and train the next generation of artists, and Newman’s offerings allow that to happen right on campus. The theaters also serve as venues for recitals by students and faculty — DU presents a robust schedule of these performances every year (and they are often free to the public).

It also allows DU to fulfill an obligation to the local community as being a resource for top-notch culture. Newman boasts of welcoming over 130,000 people a year for nearly 500 presentations in its theaters.

The center has gone beyond those roles to become a crucial part of arts education in Denver Public Schools. Its Musical Explorers program brings musicians into classrooms exposing kids to global sounds. Newman also offers an arts-minded professional development program for teachers working with kids in K-12 schools, and hosts popular matinee performances where admission — and even transportation costs — are subsidized by  local donors, such as the Genesee Foundation and U.S. Bank.

“Every single thing that we offer through our K-12 education program is completely free,” said Ahmad-Post.

Of course, Ahmad-Post also understands that the Newman Center has an important role as a public entertainer — she is, ultimately, in show business — and so she programs with that in mind, as well, adding a few special events into the lineup.

This season, that comes in the form of Le Patin Libre, the Montreal-based dance company that came together around the talents of athletics-inspired ice dancers. That show will actually take place in the DU campus’  Magness Arena hockey rink on the afternoon of Feb. 22.

Then, there is the season’s biggest name, Broadway icon Patti LuPone, who closes the year on May 2 with an autobiographical revue set to feature many of the songs that helped build her legend.

That’s the flashy part of an effort to keep Newman Center successful in both of its missions: fulfilling the needs of students and providing a little fun for the city.

“We have this vision of being a private university for the public good,” Ahmad-Post said. “And I love that idea because there is so much exchange and sharing of ideas that comes through the arts.”

Ray Mark Rinaldi is a Denver-based freelance writer specializing in fine arts.

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Friday-Saturday. If the mere thought (or sight and smell) of 30,000 pounds of smoked brisket, chicken, pulled pork and ribs revs you up, be sure to stop by the Q BBQ Fest, which runs Friday, Aug. 23, and Saturday, Aug. 24, at Civic Center park. Pitmasters from around the country will join “some of the biggest names in BBQ” at the Weber-sponsored event, producers said.

Visitors can get a free grounds pass, and all-you-can-eat-and-drink VIP upgrades are available. “The family-friendly Q BBQ Fest – which also hosts events in Kansas City, St. Louis and Dallas  – is a weekend-long celebration of diverse experiences, award-winning cuisine and local music, BBQ tutorials and demonstrations on the Weber Cooking Stage, as well as games and activities for the whole family,” producers wrote. It takes place at 101 W. 14th Ave. in Denver. qbbqdenver.com/tickets — John Wenzel

In the bag

Friday-Sunday. Cornhole will get going on a grand scale this weekend during the inaugural Colorado Cornhole Classic, taking place next to Coors Field. The all-ages community event includes live music, vendors, entertainers, food and drinks, and the chance to watch cornhole professionals as well as various local celebrities (Dinger), politicians and athletes compete. The general public can also register to play the the team tournament.

The festival is a fundraiser for the Ballpark Collective Registered Neighborhood Organization, which is trying to form a General Improvement District that would tax businesses and residents in the neighborhood in order to provide extra services, including security. Events take place on 21st Street between Blake and Market. For times, events, registration and other details, go to coloradocornholeclassic.com. — Jonathan Shikes

Bikini Kill and Ghost Canyon

Friday-Tuesday. Two of the best music events on Denver’s 2024 music calendar arrive this week: revolutionary riot grrrl act Bikini Kill is on a sprawling reunion tour that finds Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox (along with guitarist Sara Landeau) positively owning venues across Europe and North and South America. The band headlines Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop St., on Tuesday, Aug. 27, in an all-ages concert, with tickets running $60 (including service fees, per Colorado’s new transparency law), via axs.com. With opener Sweeping Promises.

Japanese food and spirit

Friday-Sunday. A new festival called Spirit of Japan takes over Denver’s historic Sakura Square, 1950 Larimer St., this weekend, offering samples of both traditional and contemporary Japanese cuisine, along with sake, from restaurants and food suppliers from outside of Colorado. Dishes will include karaage (Japanese breaded chicken; yakitori (skewered and grilled chicken pieces; yakisoba (stir-fried noodles); amami-ya (mini sponge cakes); kakigori (shaved ice); nikuman (steamed buns) and more.

Spirit of Japan will feature four tasting sessions: Aug. 23 from 5 to 10 p.m.; Aug. 24 from noon to 4 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m.; and Aug. 25, from noon to 4 p.m. Tickets are $55 for 10 food credits and $80 for 10 credits and unlimited sake and spirit tasting. For tickets and information, go to spirit-jpn.com/denver. Some proceeds will support the Sakura Foundation, a nonprofit that shares Japanese and Japanese American heritage and culture “in order to promote a more resilient, compassionate, and equitable society.” — Jonathan Shikes

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But as a deaf person, she often has to fight for basic information. At the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest at Planet Bluegrass in 2019, for example, it took 20 minutes “and the intervention of a band member’s wife” to tape off an area where an American Sign Language interpreter could be seen. At Ball Arena, there was no way for her to learn about penalties or injuries on the stadium’s screens.

“We pay the same price (as everyone else) and should be able to enjoy the entire event,” Garcia said. As for concerts, she explained that more deaf people attend than you might expect. Not being able to hear music doesn’t preclude someone from feeling the vibrations, having a social experience with friends or family, or cheering and dancing along with thousands of other fans.

As is often the case, it fell to Garcia and other disability-rights advocates to force the issue. She contacted Disability Law United, a Denver nonprofit legal organization, to push Ball Arena to add LED open-captions, as they’re called, or standard subtitles. It eventually did. Garcia and others also fought for Red Rocks Amphitheatre to add more disabled seating and better parking (it eventually did), and got Planet Bluegrass to explore on-stage interpreters.

Despite the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, which prohibits discrimination based on disabilities and sets standards for public accessibility, music venues in particular have been slow to respond. Red Rocks, for example, has been hit with three lawsuits related to accessibility over the last decade, while disability-rights advocates had to pressure the owners of Ball Arena and Empower Field — which both host big shows in addition to sports — to add subtitles to the big screens.

But things are improving slowly, said Emily Shuman, director of the Rocky Mountain ADA Center, which provides guidance and training to organizations for ADA compliance. More arts and culture purveyors are stepping up to see what they can do, and she’s lately been showing them on how technology can assist in accessibility.

That includes assistive listening systems — such as hearing loops, which transmit sound directly to hearing aids equipped with telecoils, reducing background noise and enhancing clarity — as well as live captioning, wayfinding apps for accessible seats, online tools for ADA reservations, touchscreens and Braille displays, and adjustable-text websites with easy-to-see color contrasts.

Some newer venues such as Mission Ballroom and Levitt Pavilion, as well as the organizers of July’s sprawling Underground Music Showcase, are also finally doing right by disabled people, advocates said, with accessibility guides and disabled-patron options that go beyond the average venue.

Still, most venues only meet ADA compliance because they’re forced to, activists said. About 27% of U.S. adults, or 70 million people, have a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC defines a disability as any condition that makes it more difficult to do certain activities, from vision, hearing and movement issues to memory and mental health.

Last year, 4,605 ADA lawsuits were filed nationwide — a stunning 42% increase from the previous year, according to a report from ADA Site Compliance.

“It’s amazing to me that the ADA has been around so long, and yet so many (business owners) still aren’t aware of it,” Garcia said. “It’s a constant battle to ask venues to set aside disabled seating, or have an on-stage interpreter, or really anything (disability-related).”

No excuses

Training is important, Shuman said, since even businesses with good intentions can create obstacles. That means accidentally blocking an ADA bathroom stall with a trash can, but also not training staff on disability etiquette, or the best interior routes for people with disabilities.

“I tend to avoid venues where there’s no seating and all standing,” said Gene Drumm, 76, who has a heart condition brought on by strenuous activity. He’s been attending concerts at Red Rocks for 40 years, but stopped going after he got tired of “hassling” staffers for assistance and information on easy routes to his seat — or any accessible seating at all.

“It was actually painful to deal with the stairs and slopes, and getting in and out in general,” said Drumm, who named Lyle Lovett and Van Morrison among his favorite Red Rocks shows. “And it’s too bad because I loved going. But I have no desire to put up with that anymore.”

There have been recent improvements at Red Rocks, such as an accessible shuttle that runs on a continuous loop during shows from the Upper South Lot to a drop-off point approximately 275 feet from Row 1, according to city staffers.

But it was too late for Drumm. He said he could understand if Red Rocks were a private business, but as a city-owned venue he saw no excuse. In 2022, Denver paid $48,000 to settle discrimination claims that Red Rocks charged more for accessible seating — an average of $130 per seat — than regular seats (promoters Live Nation, AEG and PBS12 also settled). The move recalled a 2016 class-action lawsuit that claimed concert-goers who use wheelchairs were restricted to “all but the most distant seats.”

That was followed by a 2017 lawsuit against the city to force ticket resellers to stop controlling the accessible seats at Red Rocks (also settled).

Earlier this year, however, Denver Arts & Venues, the city agency that runs Red Rocks, touted some improvements. Slopes in parking lots and along ramps have been adjusted to increase accessibility and comply with the ADA, said venue manager Tad Bowman. New parking spots were also added on the south side for those with disabilities, and some bathrooms were updated.

“We’ve heard from fans about not having places to use a restroom while standing in line, but also about keeping the top-circle lot as accessible parking for shows,” he told The Denver Post in February. “This has all been designed to meet ADA requirements.”

Alison Butler, who helped push for the Red Rocks changes and is now now Denver’s Division of Disability Rights director, echoed Drumm, saying there is no excuse for taking decades to comply.

“The ADA is almost 34 years old, so it gets difficult to sympathize with businesses who say, ‘How can I possibly do that?’ ” Butler said. “I fully understand that operating a business is difficult and that there are lots of rules you have to learn and follow.

“The ADA is one of them,” she continued. “So it’s like saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to pay my workers? I have to pay taxes?’ It should just be the cost of doing business.”

The ADA is supposed to be self-enforcing

However, venue owners — particularly at historic and independent clubs — have said there are only so many pricey, time-consuming upgrades that can be done before they go out of business.

Even venues with progressive politics struggle with compliance. When Skylark Lounge manager Bob Ashby applied for a permit to voluntarily install a platform lift in the back of his indie venue’s staircase, he was turned down by the fire department, which said it would narrow the stairway too much. His only other option was to build an exterior elevator shaft, which was quoted by contractors at $100,000.

“It’s a totally prohibitive cost and I’d have to borrow a ton of money,” said Ashby, whose friend, Denver-based rocker Nathaniel Rateliff, co-owns the venue. “It’s just not a sustainable thing to do, but it was a real heartbreaker because we had totally planned on making the upstairs accessible.”

The lack of an elevator still prevents physically disabled people from heading upstairs, something that rankles Kalyn Heffernan, a musician, artist and disability advocate who uses a power wheelchair. This year she put together the 24-year-old Underground Music Showcase’s first-ever accessibility guide.

To do it, she and consultant Jessica Wallach audited venues on their disability access, though she said they weren’t trying to shame anyone or force compliance. They were simply providing information for people with disabilities so they’d know what to expect.

The Skylark hosted one of the stages for the July 26-28 fest, which took place along a mile-long stretch of South Broadway. An Accessibility Team was stationed at The Youth on Record tent near the Showcase Stage, and roamed throughout the festival footprint, Heffernan said, with signs identifying them as such. Heffernan did not judge the character of the 12 venues and four outdoor stages or assign blame, she said, but rather assessed them as straightforwardly as possible.

Heffernan understands that Denver doesn’t provide resources to upgrade venues, and that accessibility is often a negotiation, not an objective state of being.

“If you’re building a playground, I don’t want you to cut out the monkey bars just because I can’t use them,” she said. “I don’t want to take that away from kids, and maybe not everything is perfectly accessible, or equitable to make it that way.”

This year, the UMS website and app offered standard and large-print versions of the guide, rating indoor and outdoor spaces for their ground slopes, proximity to accessible bathrooms, air circulation and views of the stage. It’s helping set a standard for other festivals to follow, she said, although there is still a need for on-stage interpreters and low-sensory areas for people to decompress.

Business operators have some protection in not upgrading. The ADA isn’t enforceable in the traditional sense, Butler said, and buildings constructed before 1992 can be excepted from certain upgrades — even when they’re renovating or building new spaces.

There’s no database that tracks local compliance, either, which puts the onus on disabled people and legal entities to pressure venues into paying attention.

“The ADA is supposed to be self-enforcing in a sense,” said Shuman. “The Department of Justice has authority to enforce it, but there’s no ADA police, and buildings are not inspected for that.”

A glimmer of hope

A few forward-thinking venues such as Ruby Hill Park’s Levitt Pavilion have started going beyond basic requirements by spending tens of thousands of dollars on ADA upgrades — no lawsuits needed, Heffernan pointed out.

Levitt’s project, completed in 2023, included the installation of a level concrete dance floor and an ADA-accessible path connecting it to the main plaza. The venue now has a safer and more durable surface for all audiences, and ADA-accessible areas up front and farther back, said executive director Meghan McNamara. There is also sensory accessibility ASL interpretation during concerts and events.

Drumm, meanwhile, praised the Buell Theatre and other Denver Center for the Performing Arts venues, as well as Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre for their accessibility options. Large venues are quicker to upgrade, he’s noticed, given their resources and scale.

“I think it’s incumbent upon artists and music festival promoters to say, ‘We’re not going to go there,'” the city’s Butler said. “Ultimately, (businesses) will find a way. We’ve made historic buildings accessible, but only if there’s massive pressure. They’ll say, ‘We can’t do it. It’s going to cost $50,000…’ Well, you just lost two major concerts, and that’s $50,000!”

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“I believe we have become more appreciative of the beauty and significance of this place — and more dedicated to preserving the culture, land and people that make Maui so special,” said Chelsea Livit, director of marketing and public relations at the Fairmont Kea Lani resort in Wailea. “The people of Maui have further embraced the aloha spirit and are eager to perpetuate that aloha with all who visit the island.”

Wailea is about 30 miles from Lahaina, the historic town that was almost entirely destroyed by a wildfire that quickly spread in August 2023. The Associated Press reported 102 people were killed and more than 2,200 homes were destroyed in the fire. While the burn area remains closed, there are some area businesses open that are welcoming tourists: Mala Ocean Tavern, Old Lahaina Luau, and a little removed from the former business district, Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop.

To be sure, this is not disaster tourism and visitors need to be sensitive. For example, the website for Mala Ocean Tavern preemptively asks guests not to speak to their staff about the fire as everyone has been personally affected.

“The better tourism does for Hawaii’s economy at large, the better we can do to help support the recovery of Maui’s people,” said Ilihia Gionson, public affairs officer for the Hawaii Tourism Authority, while acknowledging that visitor numbers are down on Maui this year so far.

Visiting Maui

During my recent stay on Maui, I was able to enjoy the island’s natural beauty from sunrise to sunset each day and could see how it’s possible to support the island’s main economy whether or not I was close to Lahaina.

The Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea is a celebration of Hawaii’s natural beauty and history, with a newly completed renovation that includes Hale Kukuna, an interactive cultural center. There are also enormous wooden sculptures of mermaids, sea turtles, crabs and other local elements, all carved by the hotel’s artist-in-residence, Dale Zarrella. In the cultural center are two special sculptures on display that were carved from monkey pod trees burned in the fire.

“Our Hawaiian cultural center is believed to be the largest of its kind at any resort in Hawaii,” Livit said. “If each person who visits Hawaii can go home having learned even just one meaningful thing about Hawaiian culture, that is a win to me. We have an obligation to preserve and perpetuate the culture of this place.”

The cultural center was given a prime spot with a view in the resort’s lobby and it attracts guests of all ages who want to pick up a ukulele, learn to hula dance or, in my case, to play Hawaiian checkers (and learn where to buy the locally-made game boards).

Like at other resorts, there are on-site activities to join daily and a real highlight at the Fairmont Kea Lani for us was a 7 a.m. outrigger canoe boat ride with two experienced guides. The day starts with a brief ritual to honor the rising sun where one of the guides chants before the boat is taken out on the calm, clear water off Polo Beach. The outrigger canoe originated in Hawaii, and guests can learn more about it in Hale Kukuna.

If you’re not staying at this resort, see if there is a daily resort pass available, which will give you access to the grounds — including pools — for a fee one day.

Hawaii has a robust farm-to-table culture and this is on display at the Fairmont’s Pilina restaurant. The Hawaiian word “pilina” can mean “connectedness” and here it is about the relationship with Hawaii, from drinks to food. The menu has a Spirits of the Islands page with an extensive list of Hawaiian rum, vodka and whiskey.

“Pilina sources 90% of its program ingredients from the Hawaiian Islands,” Livit said.

If you’re here on a Tuesday, you can go to the Wailea Village Farmers Market and meet local growers and makers such as Maui Cookie Lab, or if you have a car you can drive to Upcountry Farmers Market on a Saturday to sample freshly grown coffee, freshly caught fish, local honey, pineapple and more.

Beyond Maui and giving back

Each of the Hawaiian Islands has its own personality and appeal, and each of them has various ways that visitors can make choices to support sustainability or to give back by volunteering.

The Fairmont Kea Lani, for example, has a “Rooted in Aloha” reforestation initiative that welcomes guests to participate by planting a seedling in the resort’s greenhouse or along the slop of the volcano, Haleakala.

On Kauai, 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay in Princeville has a number of programs that support local businesses and charities, as well as experiences for guests to get involved in making a difference here.

“Working with island purveyors allows 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay to offer an exceptional guest experience, support the local economy and environment, and contribute to the island’s cultural and culinary vibrancy,” said Alexis Eaton, director of marketing, public relations and programming at 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay. She added that guests can leave their gently used clothing as part of their “1 Less Thing” initiative to donate locally, and they’ve partnered with the Kauai Humane Society to let visitors take a dog out for the day.

Gionson cited the Mālama Hawaii program, which invites visitors to participate in a various volunteer programs on each island. Options include reforestation efforts in Oahu’s Waimea Valley, planting native plants at North Shore Stables on Oahu, join a beach cleanup day with the Surfrider Foundation on Kauai, and snorkel and ocean cleanup with Body Glove Hawaii on the Big Island.

“These opportunities are not just a way to give back to the island, but to meet many amazing people and learn about each island’s personality, culture and communities,” Gionson said.

My travels also took me to Oahu, which is considered the most urban of the Hawaiian Islands with the city of Honolulu and home to Pearl Harbor National Memorial.

With minimal effort — and a rented car — it’s easy to find local businesses off the beaten track that will appreciate you stopping by or you’ll see fewer people than you do on the beaches of Waikiki. Some of my personal favorites include the Bishop Museum, where you can learn about the culture and history of Hawaii in the former home of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who was a member of the royal Kamehameha family; the Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden in Kaneohe, where you get views of the jagged green mountains; Koko Crater Botanical Gardens, where you’ll find blooming plumeria trees and other plants; having a meal at a food truck in Haleiwa on the famed North Shore; and exploring a local neighborhood such as Kaimuki, where there are award-winning restaurants and cute shops.

The more time you spend in Hawaii, the more you appreciate the need to protect what is here. As visitors, we can all make choices in terms where we stay, where we eat and where we shop so that the tourism dollars go directly back to supporting the islands.

5 things you can only do in Maui

When traveling, it’s rewarding to see or do things that can’t be done back home or at other destinations. Consider adding these items to your list next time you’re in Maui:

1. See a blooming Haleakalā silversword plant. You can visit Haleakalā National Park on your own or with a reservation for sunrise visits, or you can book a local tour with an expert. There is always a chance of thick fog that might alter your experience. Please avoid stepping on plants as they are rare. The summit of this volcano is just more than 10,000 feet above sea level — and on a clear day, you can see the ocean below.

2. See the Ua’a, aka the Hawaiian Petrel, at Haleakalā National Park, where it is believed to have the largest nesting colony for this species. Although the birds have been spotted on other Hawaiian islands, Maui is where the most significant populations live.

3. Eat pie at Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop. Sure, you can eat pie anywhere, but this place is special with mini pies in a variety of flavors — chocolate mac nut, Olowalu lime — that you can’t get back home or even take home with you. You’ll find it on the roadside in Olowalu, not far from Lahaina. They also have sandwiches and salads.

4. Go on a pineapple tour and taste what is considered the sweetest pineapple in the world only available here, the Maui Gold Pineapple. The Maui Pineapple Tour is on a working pineapple plantation in Hali’imaile in the upcountry, so it gives you an excuse to check out this distinct part of the island. You do taste the difference with fresh pineapple!

5. Snorkel in a volcanic crater at Molokini, a partially submerged crescent-shaped islet you can see from the shores of Maui. Yes, you can snorkel so many other places, but this one is unique due to the water quality at this reef. Schedule early to avoid the crowds.

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They also took away some peace of mind from community leaders who’ve been building a network of residential and business connections over the past four years, in part through a series of free, public events hosted by Hecho en Westwood, a Denver nonprofit.

“People are really struggling now, which I think is why there’s been an increase in robberies around here,” said Damaris Ronkanen, who started her “bean-to-bar” chocolate and hot chocolate shop at 3742 Morrison Road in early 2020.

Ronkanen was careful to note that she feels generally safe in Westwood, a predominantly Latino, working-class enclave that sits between West Alameda and West Mississippi avenues, and between South Federal and South Sheridan boulevards. “But it’s affecting how people feel. We’ve been working to knit this community together and this sets us back.”

The stolen money had been raised at two recent events: a fashion show and fundraiser dubbed Las Noches de Frida, and Festival el Mole, which gathered chefs and live entertainment to celebrate the savory Mexican sauce. The vibrant, family-friendly gatherings were designed to unite neighbors and keep money in the neighborhood.

After the burglary, Ronkanen, who is the founder of Hecho en Westwood, was so upset that she decided to close her store temporarily, saying on Instagram that while money and equipment can be replaced, she needed time to process and recover from the trauma.

But another event, the Saigon Azteca Night Market on Aug. 10, which brought together the Latino and Vietnamese communities in Westwood, has given her some forward momentum, enough so that she hopes to reopen soon.

Still, balancing safety, growth and free cultural events in Westwood has been difficult because of a string of burglaries, including those at Cultura, Columbine Steak House and Lounge, La Casita Community Center, Las Hijas De La Chilanga, Pho 555, and Asian Cajun Crab Shack and Bar (which is a few blocks east of Westwood on Alameda Boulevard).

The crimes have stoked fears that small businesses are being specifically targeted, possibly by the same individual or group, said Denver City Council member Jamie Torres, whose District 3 includes the Westwood and Barnum neighborhoods.

“We’re so supportive of the festivals and events here, but seeing these robberies that feel so deliberate and planned takes it to another level of concern,” Torres said. “We’ve seen more police presence and engagement, but we can’t exclusively rely on them to address this.”

Ronkanen also credited District 4 Denver Police Department officers for stepping up patrols, showing up to the cultural events and talking directly with mom-and-pop owners who serve immigrant and non-English-speaking residents. But she’s careful about how she integrates DPD into their events, she said, given that some non-English-speaking residents are deterred by their presence.

Burglars knew the layout

Ronkanen was shocked when she returned to Cultura on July 21 to find that a pair of men deftly avoided exterior security cameras and lights to break into her store around 4 a.m. No one was injured, she noted, and the damage could have been worse.

The men knew the building’s layout and clearly targeted Cultura, ignoring other rooms inside Westwood’s Re:Vision campus, which includes a nonprofit urban farm program for low-income residents, she said. A few days before that, someone had crashed a car into the back of Re:Vision in order to steal a bike.

Ronkanen fears the burglars knew that the cash box inside Cultura would be unguarded.

“It breaks my heart because we’ve worked so hard to build up this community,” said Mimi Luong, a friend of Ronkanen’s who owns the Far East Center, the historic collection of Asian businesses at Federal Boulevard and Alameda Avenue that sometimes teams up with Hecho in Westwood for events like the Saigon Azteca market. “We have a stake in keeping it safe, because if people are scared away, you have no business.”

The tight-knit community of noodle shops, taquerias, beauty parlors, auto repair, and other independent businesses in Westwood has been Ronkanen’s focus as she leads the Hecho in Westwood nonprofit and its community-building events.

The night before Saigon Azteca, another business adjacent to the site, Nevería Bule Bule ice cream shop, had its front window broken out, although the security system drove the would-be burglars away before they could do anything else, Ronkanen said. That made DPD’s  presence at the Aug. 10 event more important, Luong added.

“It goes beyond being visible and into having officers who can speak the language and go (door-to-door),” said DPD commander Brad Qualley, whose District 4 includes Westwood (as distinct from the City Council District 3, which draws different boundaries). “Crime is actually down here 7.4% percent as compared with last year, but whenever you have a specific type of crime in a specific neighborhood, the fear is always that crime is going up.”

Hard-won progress, “sad” reality

“We’ve been open more than four years so it’s sad to see this happen now,” Ronkanen said of Cultura. “But I’d still love to see the city and nonprofits work together to provide more security to small businesses.”

“Police have been parking in our lot overnight until they get a call,” said Luong, whose Far East Center was recently recognized as a state historic landmark. “So I know they’re helping. But there are people here who are Asian or Latino and who don’t speak much English, and I’m hoping (police and city officials) can reach out to more small businesses where English may not be their first language.”

Ronkanen hopes to reopen Cultura by the end of August, but the burglary isn’t stopping her or Luong from organizing future events, such as the Trunk or Treat Halloween gathering in October. Luong feels comfortable texting DPD’s Qualley to hammer out details, he said, and that’s not always the case with police relations in diverse communities.

“We want to make sure people know we’re hearing them,” said Qualley, who sends community resources officers into businesses and public meetings to directly address — and help train people in preventing — crime, gang violence and other issues.

Councilwoman Torres said one of her priorities is preserving the growth of businesses and events along Morrison Road, which runs diagonal through Westwood and includes the Re:Vision campus. She said some business owners still don’t trust police or city services such as 911 — or even know they’re available to them — and that educating them on being proactive in their own safety is vital.

“Westwood has federally funded safety grants, but we’re also coming up on a big, two-year construction project” along Morrison Road, she said. “We need to make sure residents are ready for that and all it entails, from the disruptions to potential (safety vulnerabilities). There’s trauma in all this and we recognize that.”

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Here in Denver, you can find a few hot pot spots, like Yummy Hot Pot, 2500 W. Alameda Ave., and The Bronze Empire, at 1591 S. Colorado Blvd., but you’d be hard pressed to find any in restaurant-heavy dining districts like Downtown, RiNo, LoHi, Uptown and Berkeley. Most are located along suburban stretches, like Havana Street in Aurora.

Tasty Pot has plans to change that. The national hot pot chain recently announced that it’ll be taking over Dana Rodriguez’s former Cantina Loca space at 2890 Zuni St., in Denver Lower Highland neighborhood, within the next four months.

Franchisee Alex Lung, who already opened one Tasty Pot in Aurora three years ago, has high hopes for the new eatery.

“Having started in the suburbs, we’ve seen a great response, and we’re excited to bring this unique dining experience to a trendier neighborhood like LoHi,” Lung, a Colorado native, said. “Denver has a growing appetite for international cuisine, and the city has embraced various culinary trends from different cultures, with people eager to explore new and authentic dining experiences.”

He makes a fair point. Just this past month, we’ve seen the grand openings of international concepts like Xiquita in Uptown, chef Erasmo Casiano’s love letter to masa and traditional Mexican ingredients; and Kakigori Ken, a kakigori (traditional Japanese shaved ice dessert) pop-up in The Source Hotel by chef Kenta Kamo of Temaki Den.

“I chose this location in LoHi because it’s a vibrant neighborhood with a great atmosphere. The area has a fantastic mix of dining options, and Tasty Pot fits right in,” Lung said. “As far as I know, there aren’t any other hot pot restaurants in the LoHi/downtown Denver area offering the same style that we do.”

The style Lung refers to is Tasty Pot’s individual servings. “Unlike the traditional all-you-can-eat hot pot (presented in one large pot that everyone shares), we serve individual hot pots, each crafted with a choice of 16 different broths and packed with a variety of ingredients, delivering distinct flavors in every bowl. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience in this area.”

Customers start by picking their broth base, which includes flavors like Sacha (a popular umami-rich Taiwanese broth); Sichuan (a bold and spicy Chinese-style broth packed with flavor and peppercorns); Tom Yum (a tangy Thai broth with hints of lemongrass and lime); and Kimchi (crafted from Tasty Pot’s home-fermented kimchi).

Next, they choose a spice level – ranging from none to flaming spicy — and add-ons, which include veggies like enoki mushrooms and lotus root; meat options like beef slices to the more adventurous pork aorta and baby octopus; plus dumplings, eggs, noodles and more. Finally, diners cook it all up in their own personal hot pot.

“Each of our broths is carefully crafted to represent the authentic taste of its origin, offering a diverse and flavorful hot pot experience that you won’t find anywhere else,” Lung said.

Besides its signature hot pots, Tasty Pot offers other items like sizzling skillets (with options like BBQ beef rib and seafood pasta prepared right at your table), ramen, chef’s kitchen specials, dumplings, Cajun fries, boba teas, Vietnamese iced coffee and more.

“We’ll soon be offering a full bar with mixed cocktails exclusive to Tasty Pot Colorado and will offer Soju with all sorts of different flavors,” Lung said. Customers can also enjoy a free house jasmine green tea on weekdays between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Beyond the food, Lung thinks hot pot will be a hit in downtown Denver due to its communal nature.

“Hot pot is not only about the food but also about the interactive and communal experience it offers, which fits well with Denver’s vibrant and social culture,” Lung said.

In the future, Lung has ambitious plans to expand Tasty Pot to new markets, including near Denver International Airport and Colorado Springs.

“Bringing Tasty Pot to Denver is about sharing a piece of this dining tradition and creating a space where people can enjoy delicious food and connect over a shared meal,” Lung said.

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