UNDERCUTTING YOUTH SAFETY

Denver youths just lost access to venues where they once enjoyed live music
while being kept safely separated from alcohol and adults.

In a misguided move spurred by police, Helen Gonzales, director of the
Department of Excise and License, revoked a 10-year-old policy that allowed
split premises so 16- to 20-year-olds could attend adult concerts in venues
of 2,000 or fewer people.

Concert halls such as the Bluebird and Ogden theaters now must either
suspend alcohol sales or bar entrance to youths. The latter is much more
likely than the former, since alcohol sales - not $6 tickets - make these
venues economically feasible.

So how does this help kids?

They still can mingle freely with adults at big venues that serve alcohol,
such as Red Rocks and the Pepsi Center. There, they aren't carefully kept
away from the bar and older patrons, as they were at smaller concert halls.

Or, feeling disenfranchised from their own music scene, they can stage
underground raves at some Lower Downtown warehouse or outdoor meadow, sans
any adult supervision.

That doesn't sit well with savvy parents who value their children's safety
and social development.

"As the mother of two teenage kids," says Denver Councilwoman Susan
Barnes-Gelt, "closing these places down just means the (kids) move
elsewhere."

Barnes-Gelt also was outraged that the decision was made without public
input, but Gonzales says agency policy changes can be made unilaterally. The
old policy was an exemption to city law, and those who want split premises
should lobby for a new law, Gonzales suggests.

Others, meanwhile, see an erosion of cultural opportunities in Denver.

"The future of music is and always has been about the next generation,"
notes Paul Epstein, owner of the independent Twist & Shout music store. "If
they are systematically shut out from enjoying live music, this will have
detrimental effects on the future of the arts in Colorado."

The move seriously encroaches on musicians' opportunities, too. Highly
successful bands like Opie Gone Bad and Big Head Todd and the Monsters
started in small concert halls in Colorado.

The policy change appears to have been motivated by hysteria over club drugs
such as Ecstasy. But most drug sales are made in schools, on the streets and
at large, outdoor concerts, not in split-premise venues where security is
necessarily tight.

In the end, excluding young people under Denver's new policy further
alienates them, retards their social and cultural development and, most
important, impedes their safety. It's also sad proof that police and city
bureaucrats are obtuse and out of sync when it comes to protecting Denver's
young adults.