DENVER — At Bar 404 on South Broadway, business owners met Tuesday to voice concerns about crime, homelessness and the possibility of a safe injection site coming to the area.
“Everybody on both sides is kind of in agreement that whatever the status quo has been – isn’t working,” said Luke Johnson, president of the Broadway Merchants Association.
Johnson and others are fed up with the status quo and rampant drug use on Broadway which they say happens in the alleyways, on sidewalks, and elsewhere.
“It’s everywhere and in broad daylight,” said Angel Macauley, owner of Femme Fatale. “I honestly don’t understand why it’s just so blatantly out in the open these days.”
“(Denver) has a lot of the same issues that we had a couple of years ago despite spending an enormous amount of money,” Johnson said.
The City of Denver passed an ordinance in 2018 paving the way for safe injection sites, but the state of Colorado has yet to approve them.
“Here’s the thing – nobody’s ever died in one of these places, and the same cannot be said for Starbucks, Civic Center, Broadway,” said Lisa Raville, executive director of the Harm Reduction Action Center at 8th and Lincoln. “We are in the worst overdose crisis we’ve ever been in. It’s a fentanyl overdose crisis and a polydrug overdose crisis.”
Raville’s team has already built a mock booth of what a safe injection site could look like.
She says her center would love to be Denver’s first safe injection site – or what she calls an overdose prevention center.
“The drugs are pre-obtained, meaning they’re not bought or sold on-site,” Raville said. “People would inject themselves or smoke.”
Raville also says safe injection reduces the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C.
“It reduces skin tissue infections; it promotes proper disposal,” Raville said. “It’s currently happening in 16 countries at 150 sites in the last 30 years around the world.”
Macauley says it’s worth a shot at this point.
“If there could be something like that to offer these people, I don’t think it would be such a mess,” Macauley said. “Let’s try it. Whatever can help – because they’re not going to go away.”
Johnson is on the fence but says it’s time to do something.
“I think if you’re using taxpayer dollars for drug use alone, I think that’s going to be a hard sell,” Johnson said. “But I think if you’re talking about rehabilitating people, I think that’s a different conversation.”
