Copyright Westword
Orchid Denver, the downtown nightclub where a gun was fired from inside during a chaotic attempted robbery on January 1, will be forced to close for 21 days — and if it violates city law again within the next year, the club could lose its liquor and cabaret licenses entirely. The Denver Department of Excise & Licenses issued a final decision on October 21, ordering the club at 1448 Market Street to shut down for three separate one-week periods this fall and winter: October 30 through November 5, November 20 through 26, and December 18 through Christmas Eve. Orchid’s attorney says the venue plans to appeal the decision. Under the city’s ruling, Orchid must operate under strict conditions: The club must create written policies to prevent guns, underage patrons and intoxicated people from entering; ensure that all security guards are properly licensed; and require a registered manager or authorized representative to be on site during all operating hours. A suspended penalty of full license revocation will hang over Orchid for a year. According to the Denver Police Department, Jacion Pope and an accomplice attempted to rob a man of his chain necklace in a nearby P.F. Changs parking lot around 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day, placing a gun to the man’s head and hitting him with the gun. Upon being struck, local security footage shows the man with the chain running toward Orchid with Pope and his accomplice in pursuit, DPD reports show. The attempted robbery victim made it inside the club, and then a gun was fired from inside, hitting Pope in the chest, according to police. The Excise & Licenses decision states that no one from Orchid called the police when Pope was shot from inside the club. Instead, Pope himself called 911 while fleeing, and police responding to that call had no idea the shooting had originated inside the club until they reviewed surveillance footage days later. By then, the robbery-victim-turned-shooter, whose identity is still unknown, was gone. Detectives said that evidence was lost and the scene was never secured because of the delay, according to city licensing documents. In the twelve-page decision signed by Excise & Licenses executive director Molly Duplechian, the city concluded that Orchid’s staff “failed to immediately report unlawful and disorderly acts” after the gunfire, which is a violation of Denver’s municipal code. Excise & Licenses also found the club violated state rules requiring establishments to operate in a “decent, orderly, and respectable manner.” The city’s final findings echoed what came out during a June 27 hearing: Video showed someone inside the club opening the door just before the muzzle flash that struck Pope. Investigators concluded that because the door appeared locked before and after, someone must have let the robbery victim inside. “It is more likely than not that the door remained locked throughout the incident and its aftermath, and someone let the unidentified victim into the nightclub,” the decision reads. Detective Richard Jaramillo testified that the sound of a gunshot is “deafening,” contradicting Orchid manager Elston Haley’s claim that staff were drinking downstairs and didn’t hear anything. Another Orchid employee, Vince Parker, said he heard the gunfire while coming up from the basement, but never called 911 or rendered aid, according to police, who said Parker stopped cooperating with investigators weeks later. The city described Parker’s inaction as “disorderly conduct” and “activity offensive to the senses of the average citizen.” Haley, meanwhile, never produced the employee list police requested, and a listed owner, Dawit Zeleke, didn’t return investigators’ calls. Mark Lukehart, attorney for Orchid Denver, tells Westword, “We were very disappointed with the Department’s ruling that lacked very little, if any, supporting facts. We are in the process of filing an appeal.” One small victory for Orchid: The city threw out an earlier violation over changing the club’s name without approval. The venue was originally licensed as LIV Denver, pitched to the city as a 1920s-style jazz supper club catering to older crowds, before reopening as Orchid Denver and promoting events like “Lit Wednesdays.” Excise & Licenses later confirmed that paperwork approving the name change had, in fact, been filed. That didn’t matter much to the final outcome, though. Duplechian affirmed the findings that Orchid failed to report the shooting and allowed its premises to become the scene of “disorderly conduct and unlawful acts,” concluding that the violations were serious enough to warrant suspension and the threat of future license revocation. In her order, Duplechian criticized Orchid’s owners for calling no witnesses during the hearing and for showing “a complete lack of accountability or acceptance of responsibility.” The department described the club’s cooperation with police as “very limited and, in some instances, non-existent.” The 21-day suspension will be broken into three week-long closures rather than consecutive days, which the owners had argued could destroy the business. Still, the department made clear that any further lawbreaking could trigger the full revocation of the club’s licenses, effectively shutting Orchid down for good.
