Prairie dog poisonings not the only things angering Stapleton residents

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This week's feature, "The Dogs of War," reports on the ongoing campaign to manage -- and, in some cases, exterminate with poison -- prairie dog colonies in the emerging Stapleton community. Master developer Forest City and city park managers are battling to protect natural-looking (but not quite natural) open space areas from being overrun with the rodents, a keystone species of the shortgrass prairie ecosystem, while touting the development as a "return to Denver's natural heritage as a city established on the prairie."

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Five ways Frontier Airlines can "improve" customer service with new fees

Categories: Business

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Trixie will make you pay.
Oh, Frontier! You went from being our homegrown alternative to the big bad airways to being one of our least favorite ways to fly. From the fees to the discontinuation of our cookies to your chipmunk identification problems, squeezing our asses into your tiny little seats now makes us sad every time we are forced to fly with you. And last week, you made things worse by jamming new fees down our throats under the guise of making customer service improvements.

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Gaylord in Aurora: New developer found to build 1,500-room, $800 million hotel

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A new developer will take over the stalled Gaylord hotel project in Aurora, which won an estimated $81.4 million tax rebate from the state last year before hospitality giant Gaylord Entertainment announced it was restructuring -- and that building the 1,500-room hotel and conference center here wasn't in its plans.

But will the City of Aurora, which won the sought-after sales-tax rebate for the project, have to reapply to the Colorado Economic Development Commission for the money? No, say state and city officials.

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Slow Money pushes for big results

Categories: Business

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Big photo below.
When the Slow Food idea began back in 1986 in Italy, it was simply another innovative concept regarding sustainable agriculture. But as its founder, Carlo Petrini, continued to build a following and expound on the potential benefits of stopping the spread of fast food, the concept caught fire and turned from a concept into a reality. Today, there are Slow Food chapters all over the world -- in 170 countries, according to Petrini -- including eight chapters alone in Colorado. But is food the only thing that can benefit from slowing down? How about money, too?

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Video: Fracking protesters disrupt energy conference with balloon alarms

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Photos, video below.
If you're looking for a crash course in how to be annoying, you could do worse than study the guerrilla tactics of Colorado Extraction Resistance, a group of activists bent on chafing the thick hides of energy interests who rely on hydraulic fracturing methods to drill for oil and gas. The group infiltrated a major industry gathering in downtown Denver last week, to noisy effect -- generating an online account of the affair that concludes, "It was much easier than you might think. All you need is fancy clothes, a few days for planning, and a little bit of raw nerve."

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Kitty's South: Has classic theater turned shuttered stroke palace run out of lives?

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Big photos below.
Yesterday on our Show and Tell blog, Bree Davies said goodbye to Kitty's East, an East Colfax landmark that was shuttered in recent days after being declared a public nuisance; in addition to offering up orgasm helpers, it seems the joint served as the setting for crack-cocaine dealing.

The closure got us to thinking about the other Kitty's -- Kitty's South, at 119 South Broadway. It's a building with amazing history, but today, it remains an anachronistic eyesore, with no better future in sight.

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Photos: Five most expensive properties for sale in Aspen

Categories: Business, Photos

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Big photos below.
In recent months, we've shared photo posts of the most expensive homes for sale in Denver and Boulder. But they're practically shacks compared to the priciest properties available in Aspen, where the reported sale of John Denver's Windstar Foundation, listed last year for $13.5 million, is small potatoes by comparison. As seen on GaryFeldman.com, they include such accoutrements such as a glass elevator and a furnished teepee with gas! Look below to see spectacular photos, and click the links to be taken to the actual listings -- just in case you're ready to drop $75 million or so.

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Marijuana retailers may not have to grow their own -- and that's great, attorney says

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Last month, the governor-appointed Amendment 64 task force recommended that retailers taking part in the recreational marijuana industry be required to grow 70 percent of their product under a business model known as vertical integration that's currently imposed on medical marijuana outlets. Yesterday, though, members of the legislature's A64 joint committee rejected that advice. Their word isn't final, but a longtime critic of vertical integration thinks consumers will be much better off if they get their way.

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Marijuana and HOAs: Can homeowners groups ban people from growing, using pot?

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Amendment 64, which allows adults 21 and over to use and possess small amounts of marijuana, includes provisions that allow growing cannabis at home. But can homeowners associations put rules in place prohibiting such grows even though they're fine under the Colorado law?

That question will be addressed at a panel discussion tomorrow. But an attorney who'll be taking part in the event believes the answer is, under certain circumstances, "yes."

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Colorado weekend warriors: Conference looks at keeping them healthy and well on the job, too

Categories: Business

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Flickr
Colorado is a healthy state; we know this. In 2012, the state ranked eleventh overall, according to America's Health Rankings, provided by the United Health Foundation. And there's no doubt Coloradans are supreme weekend warriors. On Saturdays and Sundays, they run and bike anywhere the ground is solid, climb anything sticking out of the earth, ski anywhere there's snow, and eat so health-consciously that even the dirtiest dive bars offer a humus plate. But what about the other five days of the week?

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