DENVER — The finishing touches are being put on the renovation of a building that will house a convenience store designed to pay tribute to its historic western setting while providing hi-tech service.

Platte Street Mercantile's layout combines "Colorado rustic and modern glamour," said Tammy Williams, one of the two female owners. She describes it as "pairing cowboy boots with a wedding dress. Beautiful but comfortable."

The store is in the middle of an historic Denver area downtown. On the practical side it will offer take-home meals, beverages, snacks, and a few grocery items. Catering to the tech-savvy population in the area, its customers will be able to pay using an easy self-service system.

Co-owner Janine Williams estimates eighty-five percent of the clientele will use the self-pay kiosks. She will analyze sales using ImpulsePoint, a retail management system she developed to identify best-selling items and emerging trends to enable them to efficiently stock the shelves and set prices.

The upscale c-store fills a gap left by the departure of Vitamin Cottage, a health food store. That meant no convenience or grocery outlets within walking distance to meet a growing business and residential demand.

People in the area are excited, stopping by daily to monitor progress, the owners said.

DENVER — Three counties and five cities in Colorado passed tax measures in November that will force convenience stores to raise prices on tobacco products by huge amounts.

Opponents warned that the high taxes would lead smokers to go outside the boundaries to purchase the items thus lowering retailer profits, but residents voted overwhelmingly for passage. While the stated idea is to prevent youth from smoking regular cigarettes or vaping, adults also will be affected.

Pitkin, Eagle, and Summit Counties and the cities of Boulder, Crested Butte, Glenwood Springs, Vail, and New Castle approved increases of $3 to $4 on a pack of cigarettes and forty percent on vaping supplies.

The governmental entities wanted to raise the taxes earlier but would have forfeited twenty-seven percent in tax rebates on those products. A new state law removed the penalty.

The increases came despite the failure of a proposed state law that would have levied a state-wide nicotine tax of sixty-two percent. Many government bodies did up the age to 21 to buy vaping products.

DENVER — Breeze Thru carwashes brought in lots of customers recently by scaring them.

On Halloween the washes were turned into haunted areas, complete with spooky suds, frightfully friendly costumed staff and goodie bags of sweet treats. Customers also had a chance to win the ultimate treat: a free wash.

COLORADO SPRINGS — A gas station in space?

Not so far-fetched, said a CEO of a California start-up who pitched the idea to the military at an entrepreneurs conference here.

Daniel Faber of OrbitFab pointed out that satellites have a fixed amount of fuel and once the supply is gone they are turned into orbiting trash. Thirty companies are building tow trucks for space but even they have only a tank of fuel. Faber said it would be cheaper and better environmentally to have orbiting "gas stations" to be used by robotic space repair vehicles and thus keep satellites running indefinitely. He has already contacted one firm that plans to building orbiting tow trucks.

The military is not laughing.

LITTLETON — The owners of a car wash are appealing to the public to help them get back a stolen log swing that has both sentimental and historic value.

The swing, made of logs from the huge Hayman Fire in 2002, was taken on a Sunday morning from Jazz Car Wash and Detailing.

Owners Keith and Lisa Taylor said it is too recognizable to sell. They also said it would have taken a monumental effort to remove. It is six feet tall and weighs nearly six hundred pounds.

"We had to have six guys to help us lift it into the back of the truck and place it here," said Taylor.

It was a customer favorite. One person, Jamie Mathis, said she sat in the swing every time she had her car washed. "While you wait you could go and relax and swing. It made for a peaceful, lovely environment."

PUEBLO — A murderer didn't realize a car wash surveillance camera would track his disposal of his victim in the business's trash bin.

A man picking up debris in the curb went to deposit it in the car wash receptacle. As he opened the lid, he saw a suitcase inside and when he opened it there was the body of a female. The car wash management pulled up the footage of that day enabling police to later identify the woman and her killer shown throwing the bag in the bin. A relative was arrested for the murder.

COLORADO SPRINGS — It was not the kind of day a car wash employee ever wanted to have when he went to work.

He was helping a customer pay for cleaning his SUV when a car bore down on them, a man jumped out, wrenched open the SUV door and assaulted the driver.

The man who was attacked ended up charged with murder in the bizarre incident at a Water Works.

The employee said he heard a gunshot inside the SUV, causing the assailant to back out, then fall to the ground. But it wasn't over. The man was shot three more times and died.

It apparently was a case of road rage that spilled over when the man who died pursued the SUV driver into the car wash and, not content with yelling, beat on the windows of the vehicle, then climbed inside and punched the driver.

The driver got out and, according to witnesses, stood over the assailant, shooting him three times as he lay wounded. The SUV driver, a 57-year-old man, was arrested on a first-degree murder charge. He was not allowed to bond out.

Originally published in the December 2019 issue of the O&A Marketing News.
Copyright 2019 by KAL Publications Inc.