by Mark Smiley | Dec 22, 2016 | Editorials
The 18 month long legal ordeal brought by M.A.K. Investments, LLC controlled by Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi and his in-laws Saeed Kholghy and Nasrin Kholghy against the City of Glendale is finally over as chronicled on the front page of this newspaper. As in the case of many protracted wars it ended not with a bang, but with a whimper as M.A.K.’s lawyers have gotten the state court to dismiss with prejudice the last of its outrageous claims without even a single minor concession by the triumphant attorneys for the City of Glendale.
When President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan was acquitted of all charges brought against him and six other defendants by a Bronx jury in 1987, he famously asked outside the courthouse, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?” The City of Glendale must wonder the same thing.
Glendale has spent close to a fifth of a century building an extraordinary city so that it could be known for more than simply the home of Shotgun Willie’s. The city acquired various parcels of land at no small cost for a series of extraordinary parks; it turned Cherry Creek Drive South from an eyesore into an amazing parkway with a wonderful circuitous pathway beside the creek; it built a first class boutique recreation center and made it available to its citizens at extremely low rates; it built a conference center that is one of the top venues in all of metropolitan Denver; it created Infinity Park a world class rugby venue such that internationally the city is known as Rugbytown USA; it made the city business-friendly and it attracted major investments such as CitySet greatly broadening the city’s tax base, etc., etc., etc.
The culmination of its efforts was to create a real downtown eating and entertainment district along East Virginia Avenue originally known as the Riverwalk and later the Glendale 180 Project. M.A.K acquired its 3.8 acres of land along E. Virginia to take advantage of the investment the city was going to make in the area but then decided it could make more money by building a massive apartment complex on its land to take advantage of the apartment boom in metropolitan Denver. M.A.K. did not care that the city height restrictions, the City Master Plan and zoning laws did not permit the same or that its massive apartment building would effectively destroy the Glendale 180 Project. M.A.K. and its principals only cared about what would make the most money for them and them alone.
In its greed and avarice M.A.K. decided it must threaten to, and then try to, destroy the reputation of the city and its elected officials and employees. It went after, to name just a few, Mayor Mike Dunafon, former Councilman Jeff Allen, Deputy City Manager Chuck Line and City Clerk Sherry Frame as outlined in the front page story.
Neither M.A.K. nor Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi and his in-laws apparently appreciated the toughness of a community that as an unincorporated town and then a home rule city has had to fight to prevail overwhelming powerful forces for its mere existence since 1859. Mayor Mike Dunafon adopted as his creed regarding the matter a variation of the statement in John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, to the effect: “Let everyone know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of Glendale.” It is a sentiment that every leader of Glendale over the last 150 plus years could appreciate and support.
According to City Attorney Jeff Springer, Glendale will consider seeking from the courts reimbursement for its massive attorneys’ fees and costs involved in the M.A.K. litigation. Glendale might want to also consider bringing abuse of process claims against M.A.K., Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi, Saeed Kholghy and Nasrin Kholghy to recover the loss associated with the harm done to the Glendale 180 project. In its war against the City of Glendale and its people, M.A.K. has laid many land mines and poisoned its share of wells, not all of which have been uncovered. Discovery in such a lawsuit would help expose those many hazards that are lying in wait for the unwary in the city. Glendale has been and must ever be vigilant if it and its people are to prosper.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Nov 21, 2016 | Editorials
There is no individual elected official that has been a subject of more Chronicle editorials over the last 12 years than Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey. He is term limited and will be turning over the reins of office to soon to be septuagenarian Beth McCann this next month.
Mr. Morrissey is admittedly something of a mystery to us. He is intelligent, highly articulate and strikingly handsome which are attributes he shares with Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler. When he came into office in January 2005 we had high hopes for him and his office.
His immediate predecessor as DA, Bill Ritter, went on to become governor of Colorado and there was no reason to think that Morrissey might not successfully follow that path to higher office.
There have been no scandals to speak of at the Denver DA’s office during his entire 12-year tenure for which Morrissey can be justifiably proud. Moreover, he has at times had the courage to do such things as his extremely sharp edged attack on presiding Denver County Court Judge John Marcucci and his brethren for turning Denver into the heroin capital of the West as highlighted on the front page of this month’s Chronicle.
But conversely from the beginning up until today there has been a constant barrage of legal and public relations gaffes that are extraordinary.
By way of example, we were aghast when he decided in 2008 to criminally prosecute Skinner Middle School Principal Nicole Veltze for failure to notify the police over incidental touching in a classroom, although she suspended the children involved. He assigned his two top assistants to bring three charges against the poor school administrator which brought howls from the local media.
County Court Judge Doris E. Burd threw out all charges against Veltze saying there was absolutely no evidence that the school principal acted willfully and wantonly to thwart the law. Amazingly Morrissey then went after Judge Burd saying that his office was very surprised and concerned by the ruling and just might appeal.
To prove he never was able to grasp the old saying that “if you find yourself in a hole stop digging” Morrissey then went personally to the editorial board of the now defunct Rocky Mountain News to attempt to prevent them from issuing an editorial castigating him. He told its editorial board that state law required him to bring the charges. The editorial board found his arguments ludicrous and issued one of the most damning editorials about a Denver DA in living memory.
To demonstrate he has learned nothing in his 12 years in office he just recently decided to bring to trial Clarence Moses-EL for rape charges. Moses-EL had been convicted back in 1987 for beating and raping a woman in his Five Points neighborhood. His conviction was based almost solely on the testimony of the victim saying that it had come to her in a dream that Moses-EL was the one who raped her. She had previously said that she could not identify her assailant because of the beating, but that the person had a toupee and was either “LC, Earl or Darnell.” Moses-EL did not have a toupee nor was one of the men named.
There was significant evidence containing DNA collected by the Denver Police but that field of science was just in its infancy and no tests were performed. Moses-EL was sentenced to 48 years in prison. Moses-EL steadfastly denied he was guilty even after the verdict
When the field of DNA advanced to the point that the evidence gathered could, in fact, be tested Moses pleaded with the DA’s office and the state to perform the tests, but they refused saying they did not have enough money. Eventually Moses-EL, with the help of fellow prisoners, scrapped together enough money to have the tests performed but once again the DA’s office and the state refused. With help of pro bono attorneys, a court finally ordered Denver to perform the tests.
Unbelievably it turned out Denver had destroyed all of the DNA evidence relating to the Moses-EL case. LC Jackson, one of the men who the victim originally said was a possible assailant, confessed to the crime but later recanted, then reconfessed and then recanted.
A Denver District Court found enough evidence “to allow a jury to probably return a verdict of acquittal in favor of the Defendant” and allowed Moses-EL a new trial. Everyone assumed the case was over, but Morrissey decided to go after Moses-EL. To cover his tracks, Morrissey attempted to get Moses-EL to plead guilty to various lesser charges in return for the DA’s office recommending he be released for time served. Moses-EL said he would never plead guilty to a crime he had not committed even if it meant he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
The NAACP brought to the court a petition signed by 2,000 prominent Denverites asking that he not be forced to go through a second trial. The Denver Post wrote a blistering editorial pleading that Moses-EL not be retried. Beth McCann stated that if Morrissey would not take any action until she was in office she would not retry Moses-EL. Apparently, none of that mattered to the tone deaf Morrissey. As in the Veltze case he brought his top aide Chief Deputy Bonnie Benedetti to try the case.
On November 14, 2016, a 12-person Denver jury after only three hours of actual deliberation found Moses-EL not guilty on all charges to the tumultuous cheers of the community. At age 60 Moses-EL was finally free after 28 years of wrongful confinement for a crime he never committed.
As we noted earlier, both Morrissey and Arapahoe DA George Brauchler are highly intelligent individuals, but Brauchler has one attribute that Morrissey has demonstrated time after time he badly lacks — judgment.
An extraordinary lack of judgment is why Mitch Morrissey should never again be elected or appointed to any office of public trust, notwithstanding his many gifts. The Veltze and Moses-EL cases demonstrate he simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing when it truly counts.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Oct 21, 2016 | Editorials
The intrepid and resourceful everyday citizens from Humboldt Street Neighborhood Association and Curtis Park Neighbors (some of which are pictured below) were, of course, greatly disappointed when the Denver Board of Adjustment for Zoning turned down their appeal of the decision from the Denver Planning Department by a 4-1 margin. The project will help destroy their neighborhoods by permitting high density micro apartments without any parking.
The vote was 4 to 1 rather than unanimous because the Board did not want to appear to be what they are — lackeys for the mayor and the real estate developers who control him. It is known in the trade as the “gentleman’s dissenting vote.”
What’s next? Well, they can exercise their rights as Americans and Coloradans and appeal the decision to the Denver District Court for the State of Colorado. The only problem is, of course, that the average Denver citizen never wins in the Denver District Court when suing the City and County of Denver when it relates to the destruction of their neighborhoods. Never, ever.
Just to review a few of the more egregious recent cases:
- Friends of Denver Parks v. the City and County of Denver et al. In September of 2013 Denver District Court Judge Herbert L. Stern III dismissed each and every claim of the citizens concerning the sale for development of a portion Hentzell Park in Denver.
- Residents of West Highland v. The Denver City Council et al. In September of 2013 Denver District Court Judge Robert C. McGahey dismissed each and every claim of the citizens regarding the rezoning of property in the Highlands area of Denver.
- Sloans Lake Neighborhood Association v. Denver City Council et al. In March of 2016 Judge J. Eric Eliff dismissed each and every claim on the rezoning of the former St. Anthony’s Central Hospital site.
- Residents of Crestmoor Park v. Denver City Council et al. In May of 2016 Denver District Court Judge Shelly I. Gilman not only dismissed each and every claim of the citizens over the rezoning of the Mt. Gilead Church property but she appeared to mock and taunt the citizens for even bothering to bring claims in her courtroom and made it abundantly clear that she would never rule in their favor.
Then there was the infamous case of Ballpark Neighborhood Association, Inc. v. City and County of Denver et al in September of 2015. There Denver District Court Judge R. Michael Mullins actually ruled, in a six page opinion, in favor of the citizens declaring that the City and County of Denver and the Board of Adjustment for Zoning had “abused their discretion and exceeded their jurisdiction in agreeing to allow the Denver Rescue Mission to expand.
Never accused of being the “brightest crayon in the box” Judge Mullins apparently had not been informed that the citizens of Denver are never allowed to win such cases. Calls were apparently made and Mullins was given, directly or indirectly, a talking to. Several weeks later Judge Mullins reversed himself and ruled in favor of the City and County of Denver on all claims. Judge Mullins, in disgrace, announced his retirement several months later.
There is a time honored idiom in American politics — “You Can’t Fight City Hall.” The saying is not “You Can’t Sue City Hall” because you clearly can. It means, inter alia, simply that you won’t win your lawsuit. Why? Because the concept of an “independent judiciary” is a myth, or more accurately, something of a cruel hoax as it pertains the Denver District Courts.
It is not that Denver judges are bribed. Why bother? Bribery would be so gauche and totally unnecessary. The 23 Denver District Court judges are, in reality, state government employees in black robes who plan to retire as state government employees on state government pension plans. They roam the hallways and eat in the cafeteria at the City and County Building with other government employees whether they are elected officials or government bureaucrats in the form of city attorneys and district attorneys, etc. They go to the same American Bar Association and Colorado Bar Association meetings. They attend the same parties and events. They were able to become judges in part because of their political connections and they do not intend to upset the applecart.
It is an unwritten rule in Denver whereby the unelected judges agree they will not play in the elected officials’ sandbox so long as elected officials don’t interfere with their spoils. Everybody in state and municipal government gets their healthy serving of the taxpayer funded pie all in the name of old fashioned “public service.”
So is all lost for Denver’s brave and intrepid neighborhood groups like the Humboldt Street Neighborhood Association and Curtis Park Neighbors? The answer is surprisingly, no, at least for the future. Of course the Mayor, the City Council, the Denver Planning Department, the Board of Adjustment, Barry Hirschfeld and the Denver District Court system will have raped and partially destroyed their neighborhoods for fun and profit, but things can and will continue to get worse and worse unless citizens start fighting for the future of their city.
The election system in Denver is, in fact, not rigged unlike some large cities in the United States. There is no Daley machine or a modern day Tammany Hall in Denver. Regular citizens can and have won elections if they are willing to fight hard enough, as demonstrated by the victories of City Auditor O’Brien and Councilmen New, Kashmann and Espinoza. You can even beat incumbents like Councilwoman Susan K. Shepherd.
Do citizens need to wait until the next municipal election finally rolls around? Of course not. Progressives in the early 20th century knew the only way to hold elected officials actually accountable was for citizens to be able to recall them, and provided for such in the Colorado Constitution and the Denver City Charter. Progressives in the 21st century are somehow extremely squeamish about holding elected officials, and therefore the entire system, accountable by filing recall petitions. Fill one petition against one of the numerous real estate developer owned City Council persons and suddenly — win, lose or draw — the whole political landscape changes and the citizens of Denver can now in fact “fight Denver City Hall.”
The time is a-wasting. Let us begin the fight to take back the City and County of Denver from real estate developers like Pat Hamill and his crony capitalist enablers at the loathsome Colorado Concern organization. You owe it to your children and grandchildren.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Oct 5, 2016 | Editorials
With the daylight hours shortening and the leaves beginning to fall, the large group of young so-called “travelers” will begin their annual migration to cities with warmer weather, leaving the 16th Street Mall to Denver’s more “traditional” homeless who are older and, generally speaking, a great deal less violent with marijuana and alcohol being the drugs of choice rather than the heroin and meth preferred by some of the young travelers.
It has been an in-teresting summer down at the Mall which was originally envisioned as a mecca for tourists coming to Colorado, and in particular Denver. Walking down the Mall this summer one could enjoy the fresh, pungent odor of urine while being accosted by highly aggressive young panhandlers and even physically assaulted by individuals carrying pipes. If you were eating on one of the patios or restaurants adjoining the Mall you stood a chance of your food literally being taken off your plate by a traveler. It got so bad that even the older Denver homeless were demanding that Denver do “something” about the chaotic situation.
The situation got worse and worse until some of the violence was captured by a KDVR camera crew and a reporter and broadcast on the nightly local news. Other news outlets soon began covering the story and a call went out to the mayor of Denver (who was on a mission in Rio De Janeiro to find out about what was involved in holding the Olympics) to tell him trouble was brewing back in River City.
To his credit when Mayor Hancock returned he held a press conference at which he made it clear that he found the situation untenable and he intended to take action. No wonder. The problem has been festering for a long time on the 16th Street Mall.
In 2015 the Denver City Council was presented with a report from Visit Denver, the official marketing arm of The Convention & Visitors Bureau, which noted how visitors complained about the “homeless, youth, panhandling, safety, cleanliness, and drugs, including marijuana consumption.” In one communication to the bureau a visitor noted: “I’m sorry but I would never consider putting attendees in danger by holding a convention in your city. We were staying at Embassy Suites downtown on 16th and last night witnessed a group of about 30 teenagers attack a man walking along 16th Street.”
Part of the problem are the somewhat spineless downtown business groups such as the Downtown Partnership whose spokeswoman asserted amazingly to a television reporter that the violence and assaults on the Mall are part of the wonderful “urban experience” that Denver provides to visitors.
The mayor did significantly increase the police presence on the 16th Street Mall which caused many of the travelers to move to the Cherry Creek bike path resulting in a massive increase of used heroin needles on the bike path. Denver Parks and Recreation issued a temporary directive allowing police to give 90-day suspensions from park use for persons caught dealing or using drugs in the parks, but suspensions could be appealed.
Even that tepid response was, of course, too much for the highly sensitive Editorial Board of The Denver Post whose main job is to make as Denver thoroughly miserable as possible for the residents, while generally being in the back pocket of the Administration and the high density real estate developers that control the city. (See The Denver Post September 7, 2016 lead editorial.)
The dispute highlights a decayed society that no longer can protect itself or its children. Parasites like John Parvensky, President of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless since 1986, have exploited the massively government funded Coalition for his own enrichment, with the goal appearing to be to attract as many homeless to Denver as physically possible in order to increase the funding for the Coalition and Parvensky’s scandalous salary.
Visitors to Denver are often shocked by the number of panhandlers and beggars throughout the city. You often hear city officials assert that begging is a constitutional right for which they can do nothing. In actual fact the United States Supreme Court has never asserted that public panhandling is somehow protected by the 1st Amendment but simply that governments cannot prevent organized charities from soliciting funds as stated in Riley v. National Federation of the Blind of Carolina.
Of course the ACLU will sue Denver if it even attempts to prevent even aggressive panhandling, but Denver gets sued all the time anyway. The ACLU is infamous for cowering when government actually attempts to quash citizens’ real 1st Amendment and other rights as when Roosevelt issued an executive order interning Japanese-American citizens during World War II or when the U.S. government in the 1950s went after individuals for simply being a member of or having been a member of the Communist Party of America. The ACLU is a gutless organization when the rubber really meets the road, but in in the meantime it’s great for suing small municipalities with limited budgets for having inoffensive Christmas displays.
In between the endless ACLU lawsuits, the young heroin chic travelers would stop coming to Denver as they look for cities with great weather that are easy marks. Stop being an easy mark and they go away. But, of course, Denver would risk, as the spokeswoman for the Downtown Partnership indicated, visitors being deprived of the wonderful “urban experience” of being physically assaulted on the 16th Street Mall and the opportunity of starting their own collection of used heroin needles from the Cherry Creek bike path. But as the old saying goes “you can’t have it all.” Will Denver muster the courage to fight the good fight? Don’t count on it. The Administration is too busy destroying neighborhoods with excessive density and no parking.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Aug 29, 2016 | Editorials
The Denver City Attorney’s Office is an enormous operation employing over 100 attorneys and hundreds of paralegals and staff personnel. It not only advises the Mayor and all City Department agencies as well as the City Council but also the City Auditor. It also represents and defends the City in all legal matters including initiating and defending lawsuits.
In recent years the job of City Attorney, which is considered a great political plum, has attracted the good, the bad and the ugly. Cole Finegan broke the record for hutzpah in office by claiming that the City Attorney position was not really a full-time job and so he became City Attorney and Chief of Staff simultaneously for then Mayor John Hickenlooper. His successor Larry Manzanares committed suicide after being charged with stealing a government computer and putting pornography on it.
In 2014 Mayor Hancock appointed 34-year-old Scott Martinez to the position. We noted that he had little or no qualifications for the job and the people who knew him called him a “legal lightweight” and “a political hack.” His appointment was apparently due to political pressure put on the Mayor by the Colorado Latino Forum which claimed, probably validly, that Hancock had appointed very few Hispanics to important positions in his administration.
For pointing out Martinez’s lack of qualifications we received a scalding, if not unintentionally hilarious letter, from the Board of Directors of the Colorado Latino Forum Denver Chapter accusing the Chronicle of all types of political incorrectness including racism, ageism and anti-nativism.
Since our story wherein we criticized Mr. Martinez concerned Hentzell Park, the Board of the Colorado Latino Forum Denver Chapter for good measure also severely castigated those individuals and neighborhood groups opposing the park being traded away for development. The Board specifically excoriated the everyday citizens for failing “to ask permission of those tribes that have historical claim to the land, the C
heyenne and Arapaho Nations, and explain how their homeland will be used for the good of the people.” Ostensibly any person challenging any land use decision or rezoning in the City and County Denver would be subject to the same criticism. Wow, as if opposing the entire city bureaucracy and the all-powerful real estate developers isn’t bad enough.
The Board then went on to declare that they were standing up for Mr. Martinez and others like him who they knew have “earned their leadership positions” and that they would take their “rightful places in history.” The Board extensively publicized its letter throughout the Internet.
Well Mr. Martinez has taken his “rightful place in history” after being forced to resign in disgrace after two and half disastrous years as City Attorney. He is under criminal investigation by the District Attorney for destroying his letter terminating Assistant City Attorney Stuart Shapiro that was being sought by investigative reporter Brian Maass of Channel 4 News pursuant to a Colorado Open Records Act request.
Related thereto the Denver City Council has just approved paying Mr. Shapiro a $660,000 settlement of claims that he was “scapegoated by higher ups” (read Scott Martinez and his deputies) regarding his suspension for his apparent unethical actions during the investigation of the Sheriff’s Deputies abuse of Jamal Hunter, who the city paid $3.25 million. No one appears to doubt that Shapiro engaged in unethical conduct as highlighted by Federal Judge John Kane, but instead it appears he did so so on the instructions of Scott Martinez and his deputies.
Why that entitles Shapiro to $660,000 of the taxpayers’ money is a little unclear, but as the headline to the lead Denver Post editorial declared, “Something stinks about Denver’s Shapiro settlement.” Thanks to an obsequious and secretive Denver City Council we will, in fact, probably never find out what really happened.
We, along with neighborhood groups like Friends of Hentzell Park, are anxiously awaiting the heartfelt apology to us from the entire Board of the Colorado Latino Forum Denver Chapter acknowledging that we were correct and they were wrong about Mr. Martinez’s fitness to be City Attorney, but somehow we get the feeling it will never come.
So out with the incompetent and apparently ethically challenged City Attorney Scott Martinez and in with the new one Kristin M. Bronson from the national law firm Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie, LLP. She too is a virtually unknown and by all appearances is not much more than a mediocre attorney stuck in a huge firm with little or no qualifications for municipal legal work, but her predecessor had a similar background.
How did our esteemed mayor find her? That is easy — he didn’t. She was found by Pat Hamill and/or his real estate development buddies who knew her from the fact that a significant part of her legal work, according to her law firm’s website, was representing “lender, developer and property management clients in all facets of real estate, construction, and banking law.” No reason for the mayor to kowtow to the Colorado Latino Forum any longer when the real estate developers can have their gal put in place who will undoubtedly “do as instructed.”
Will she be as inept, incompetent and ethically challenged as Scott Martinez? We doubt it, but that is a very low bar to hurdle. Will she represent the interests and concerns of the citizens of the City and County of Denver? You have got to be kidding. She knows who got her appointed — real estate developers — and that is who will give the necessary marching orders.
So, the beat goes on in Mayor Michael Hancock’s Mile High City.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Jul 22, 2016 | Editorials
by Mark Smiley
The Bull & Bush opened its doors in 1971, and ever since they have been at the forefront of the microbrew business. August marks their 45th year in business and they are celebrating with a series of limited release beers inspired by local bands. Each limited edition bottle will include a special music sampler download for each band. Those bands will perform at the Bull & Bush Brewery Saturdays in August.
The Bull & Bush started brewing their own beer in January 1997. The first beer brewed was Extra Special Bitter (ESB) and it is still on tap today joining 39 other rotating flavors. The seven-barrel system allows the Bull & Bush to produce 30 kegs of beer at a time to keep up with demand.
The brewpub’s first 26 years in business featured beers that were difficult to obtain. Anchor Steam was offered at the Bull & Bush in 1974 to lukewarm reviews. “We were on the cutting edge
back then even before we were making beer,” said David Peterson, co-owner of the Bull & Bush Brewery. “He [Dale Peterson] convinced Fritz Maytag [owner of Anchor Steam] to send the distributor 50 kegs of Anchor Steam all at once.”
Customers were not accustomed to beers other than Miller, Coors, and Budweiser so they felt this brand was “too dark.” The same held true for Boulder Beer which had their own beer on tap in the 1970s as well.
Eventually, curiosity prevailed and customers flocked to the Bull & Bush. “Glendale was the hotspot in the ’70s and ’80s and there was nothing else around our pub,” said Peterson. “People’s curiosity lured them into the Bull & Bush.”
Wynkoop Brewery started the brewpub craze in 1988 and brewpubs popped up all across the metro area and the state. By 2005, most had disappeared. Now microbreweries, without kitchens that feature craft beer, have lower overhead and a better product.
The Bull & Bush has weathered all of these storms relying on their kitchen and tasty craft beer. They have also changed with the times by adding a patio, remodeling their kitchen, installing new carpeting, bottling their beer, and distributing their bottled beer throughout the state. All of these major developments took place in the last 10 years.
Bull & Bush enthusiasts can find the beer in close to 80 bars and restaurants across the state and in most major liquor stores. At first, the Bull & Bush distributed their bottled beer within a 10-15 mile radius. With demand so high, co-owners and brothers David and Erik Peterson hired a distributor to send the beer across the state.
Amidst all of the changes and improvements, David Peterson notes that one thing will never change at the Bull & Bush — the green chile it has been serving since 1971 will never be compromised. “We will never change the recipe,” said Peterson. “A lot of people would be upset if we did.”
Aside from modern televisions, new carpeting, and more taps for beer, the Bull & Bush looks very much the same as it did in 1971. That is just the way the Petersons and their guests want it. The Bull & Bush has been a Glendale tradition for close to half a century with no signs of stopping.
Tickets to the concerts in August are $19.71 each. Visit bullandbush.com/collec tions/45th-anniversary for more information and to purchase tickets.
