Denver restaurateur who complained about downtown says Mayor Mike Johnston ‘really heard’

After telling Mayor Mike Johnston that downtown Denver is “completely falling apart,” Dave Query feels relieved.

“Is writing a letter and copying 140 people on it the best way to go? Sometimes,” the owner of Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar said of the email he sent in early February. “Sometimes you got to make a lot of noise. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

An increased police presence, which Johnston announced at a news conference earlier this month, is the main reason Query is optimistic about LoDo’s future.

A four-person, mounted horse patrol unit, 10 extra officers and a safety hub kiosk at 16th and Arapahoe streets are among the changes Johnston announced to improve conditions along the 16th Street Mall. He also touted additional private security presence and expanded mental health and paramedic support for the area.

“That’s all we were asking for,” Query said. “Let’s reinstate law and order down here so that if people need help, they get the help they need and they’re not just left on the corner to just be unhinged for hours at a time.”

Query is hopeful that downtown infrastructure, like sidewalks and trees, will get cleaned up too. This is the first year the city is responsible for sidewalk repairs and maintenance following a 2022 ballot measure.

He said a decrepit Westword distribution box in front of Jax, which is at the corner of 17th and Wazee, and a dumpster taking up two parking spaces have already been moved by the city.

“This is your marquee, showcase, tourist destination,” he said. “When you got big roll-off dumpsters, the (parking) meters are bagged, the sidewalks and the curbs are all cracked, the tree wells are broken, some of the trees are dead. It’s like, ‘Wow, this place really needs some love.’ And they’re promising that love.”

Query said he and a group of LoDo restaurateurs and business owners met with Johnston, Police Chief Ron Thomas and Adeeb Khan, the director of Denver’s Economic Development and Opportunity office, in early March, going line-by-line through his February letter for 90 minutes.

Query noted that the city officials agreed with most of the letter and promised to come back with a plan to address his big asks, like more police, better infrastructure and parking solutions.

Query said he met with the group a second time on April 2 after Johnston’s news conference, where they laid out how the new initiative corresponds to Query’s original complaints.

Though Query had nothing but positive things to say about interacting with the city, he noted that follow-through still needs to happen. He said things like Colorado’s use of personal recognizance bonds, which allow someone to get released from jail without paying bail as long as they promise to appear in court, need to change too.

“(Cops are) walking into situations where they don’t have the authority they need to do the job, to enforce the laws,” he said. “They’re just there to be babysitters at times.