May 13, 2022 10:35 AM UTC

Remember, Downtown Denver Is a Crime-Infested Hellhole*

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• by: Colorado Pols

Unless it’s Cinco de Mayo weekend and you want to be governor of Colorado!

We haven’t seen a definitive report yet, but it’s our understanding that Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl was able to escape Civic Center Park after these photos were taken despite the odds! That’s a big relief since last August, in an in-kind donation a column provided the Colorado Springs Gazette, Ganahl painted a very different picture of Denver’s downtown area:

Maybe walking by needles on the sidewalk, homeless camps across the city parks and leftover graffiti on buildings near our Capitol will slow them down? Maybe hearing from one of their neighbors that their car was stolen, or their apartment was broken into, or their favorite coffee shop had their window broken would cause them to hesitate? Things are changing in Colorado. A lot.

For those of you who are new to our state, just a couple years ago downtown Denver was a beautiful, clean vibrant place with a constant buzz of people laughing and admiring the views…

And what do we see above? Looks like “a beautiful, clean vibrant place with a constant buzz of people laughing and admiring the views” to us! Downtown Denver isn’t perfect, and in our memory never has been perfect, but it remains on balance the vibrant destination that actual residents say they love living in and near more than just about anywhere else in America.

It’s a problematically mixed message. Ganahl should have picked one.