colorado news

It has been tough for breweries in central Denver over the past year as at least half a dozen have closed, including Mockery, MobCraft, Wah Gwaan, Dos Luces, Counter Culture and Lowdown. Alpine Dog Brewing, at 1308 E. 17th Ave., will join that list when it shuts its doors on March 31. “After nearly 10 years of great beer, great friends and the most fun and epic of times, Alpine Dog will be selling or otherwise closing the brewery,” the business wrote on social media. “It’s a bittersweet moment to leave behind what we…

For 50 years, a Pepto Bismol-pink tower has loomed large over the Lakewood shopping center marking the spot of the legendary Casa Bonita. The tower is something of a beacon, calling to longtime fans and would-be diners with the promise of mariachi music, cliff divers, crispy sopapillas and the kind of fun that inspires childlike joy. Next week will mark the 50th anniversary the day that Oklahoma City entrepreneur Bill Waugh opened Denver’s Casa Bonita in a former Joslin’s department store. The restaurant was part of a…

Four years of waiting. Four years of questions. Denver’s Vine Street Pub & Brewery, which closed because of the pandemic on March 17, 2020, along with every other restaurant, bar and brewery in Colorado, said Thursday that it had made plans to finally reopen this spring. Vine Street Pub & Brewery is opening on May 15th,” the business wrote on its Facebook page. “We are currently hiring for all positions.” Three other pubs that are part of the Boulder-based Mountain Sun group were able to open in 2021, while a…

The most expensive home ever sold in the Denver area is officially off the market — and Russell Wilson took a $3.5 million loss to seal the deal. Wilson, the former Denver Broncos quarterback who was cut from the team earlier this month, sold his 20,000-square-foot Cherry Hills Village mansion for $21.5 million Wednesday, according to Arapahoe County public records. The quarterback and his wife, singer-songwriter Ciara, moved into 10 Cherry Hills Park Drive in April 2022, just weeks after the Seattle Seahawks traded…

As ski passes for the 2024-25 season go on sale this month, one small Colorado resort has decided it will not open for at least the next year. Hesperus Ski Area near Durango said it “will not operate for the 2024/2025 season. … Both downhill and uphill skiing as well as winter tubing will not be available.” That means Hesperus will be closed for two consecutive seasons after a mechanical failure with its sole chairlift prevented the ski area from opening this winter. While Hesperus’ Bighorn Lift is still in disrepair,…

Littleton recently passed a law banning the retail sale of cats and dogs, joining fifteen other Colorado cities in a bid to decrease commercial breeding operations, according to the Best Friends group. The ordinance, which passed the Littleton City Council with a unanimous vote on March 5, was first introduced in January and follows a slew of similar attempts to increase animal welfare in Colorado after the state’s “puppy mill” bill, or Humane Pet Act, failed to pass in 2020. The bill would have established standards for…

The company behind a phone app for determining a food’s nutritional value has amassed $32 million in debt and still owes back pay to two dozen ex-employees as it shuts down. Opsis Health, of Highlands Ranch, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy March 15, less than one year after it launched Plateful, the company’s signature phone app. Chapter 7 requires a company to liquidate its assets and distribute them among those it owes money to. Plateful allows users to scan 1 million foods, then assigns those foods both a nutritional…

On the last day of January, an all-hands meeting was called at Empower Advisory Group, the financial planning division of the massive Greenwood Village-based company. Nine financial advisors for Empower’s wealthy clients had unexpectedly resigned en masse five days before and the company was scrambling to understand what it all meant. What it didn’t know then but believes now is that there were corporate spies at the meeting. On March 1, four more financial advisors resigned abruptly — what Empower called “a second wave”…

By TOM KRISHER and MATTHEW DALY (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration this week is expected to announce new automobile emissions standards that relax proposed limits for three years but eventually reach the same strict standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The changes come as sales of zero-tailpipe emissions electric vehicles, needed to meet the standards, have begun to slow. The auto industry has cited lower sales growth in objecting to the EPA’s preferred standards unveiled…

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration this week is expected to announce new automobile emissions standards that relax proposed limits for three years but eventually reach the same strict standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The changes come as sales of zero-tailpipe emissions electric vehicles, needed to meet the standards, have begun to slow. The auto industry has cited lower sales growth in objecting to the EPA’s preferred standards unveiled last April as part of the most ambitious plan ever to cut…