Boulder Weekly 3.04.21

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To the uniquely bold flavors of the iconic Vietnamese banh mi sandwich. Let the fresh herbs breakdance in your mouth while the savory meats melt your soul. C’mon, it’s time to try something different. Something exciting.

Something dangerously delicious.

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Why the industrial compost facility in Boulder County should not be built

by Ken Robinson

New Colorado bill prohibits using an immigrant’s status as extortion

by Angela K. Evans

The benefits of community gardening, especially during the pandemic

by Angela K. Evans

Always the innovator, Todd Rundgren’s virtual tour stops by 25 cities, including Denver

by Alan Sculley

Longmont’s Left Hand Brewery passes milestone in MS research fundraising

by Matt Cortina

BVSD opens Central Kitchen, maximized for scratch-cooking, working with local farmers and teaching students

by Matt Cortina

departments 7 The Anderson Files: Social solidarity or culture war 9 Letters: Signed, sealed, delivered, your views 18 Events: Peep dioramas, art, concerts, virtual film festivals and more to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do...

22 Astrology: by Rob Brezsny 22 Savage Love: Helping a brother in turmoil 23 Film: Michael Talarico on ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ 25 Food/Drink: Porchetta Cuban @ Kenny Lou’s Deli 30 Weed Between the Lines: The ‘vape mail ban’ is aimed at e-cigarette companies, but may put the cannabis industry in the line of fire BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Publisher, Fran Zankowski Editor, Matt Cortina Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Senior Editor, Angela K. Evans Arts and Culture Editor, Caitlin Rockett Contributing Writers, Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Emma Athena, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Sarah Haas, Jim Hightower, Dave Kirby, John Lehndorff, Rico Moore, Amanda Moutinho, Katie Rhodes, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Alan Sculley, Ryan Syrek, Christi Turner, Betsy Welch, Tom Winter, Gary Zeidner SALES AND MARKETING Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Sami Wainscott Advertising Coordinator, Corey Basciano Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama BUSINESS OFFICE Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer Cover, Julie Vandenoever, courtesy Growing Gardens March 4, 2021 Volume XXVIII, Number 29 As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holds-barred journalism and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@ boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper.

690 South Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO, 80305 p 303.494.5511 f 303.494.2585 editorial@boulderweekly.com www.boulderweekly.com Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. © 2021 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.

Boulder Weekly welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@ boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Social solidarity or culture war

by Dave Anderson

W

e are supposed to be in the middle of a “culture war” but it is really a conflict about how we define social solidarity in this country.

It is predominately about race.

In June 1963, prominent conservative syndicated newspaper columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak penned a rather startlingly candid piece about a meeting of the Republican National Committee in Denver.

They noticed “a self-conscious lack of support, either private or public, for Negro rights” at the meeting. They said: “Substantial numbers of Party leaders from both North and South see rich political dividends I

flowing from the Negrophobia of many white Americans. These Republicans want to unmistakably establish the Party of Lincoln as the white man’s party.”

However, there was a reluctance to speak too bluntly. They continued: “Obviously, this is not the kind of political theory suitable for shouting to the world.” Evans and Novak said opposition to civil rights could be “legitimately” opposed by invoking “states’ rights” and “law and order” and “limited government.” The best messenger would be Senator Barry Goldwater, who was “no segregationist.”

Just a few weeks earlier on June 11, Alabama Gov. George Wallace attempted to stop black students from registering for classes at the University of Alabama. President John Kennedy mobilized the state’s National Guard to force Wallace to step aside. Then Kennedy asked the MARCH 4, 2021

three national TV networks for airtime to deliver a talk on racial equality. At midnight in Jackson, Mississippi, local NAACP leader Medgar Evers returned home and was assassinated in his driveway by a KKK member.

History sped up. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was in August. Then Kennedy was assassinated at the very beginning of his re-election campaign.

Lyndon B. Johnson was elected in 1964 by the largest popular vote landslide since 1820. He was challenged in the Democratic primaries

by George Wallace, who did well in Northern states riding an anti-civil rights backlash. Goldwater, the Republican candidate, talked about lawlessness and crime in the big cities and said nuclear weapons could be used in the Vietnam War. He had see GUEST COLUMN Page 8

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THE ANDERSON FILES from Page 7

voted against the Civil Rights Act. He won his home state of Arizona but also swept the Deep South. A Republican hadn’t done that since Reconstruction in 1877. The 1964 election was the last time a Democratic presidential candidate won a majority of the white vote.

While Goldwater and Wallace lost that year, they showed that racial fear might be a potent weapon. From Nixon onward, Republicans used dog-whistle racism to undermine social progress enacted over decades since the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The victories of the civil rights movement happened when the economic prospects for most Americans declined and the real wages of workers started going down. Conservatives convinced many whites that the struggle over racism was a zero-sum game.

The election of Ronald Reagan was a turning point. Reagan summed up his philosophy with the witty but fatuous comment, “The nine most dangerous words in the English language are, ‘I am from government, and I’m here to help.’”

Now we are faced with the dire emergencies of the pandemic, economic crisis and climate change.

Damn it, we need a competent and responsive democratic government.

Progressive Congressman Ro Khanna (D-California) told the New York Times in January that Joe Biden “has a huge opportunity to finally get our nation past the Reagan narrative that has still lingered. And the opportunity is to show that government, by getting the shots in every person’s arm of the vaccines, and I

building infrastructure, and helping working families, is going to be a force for good.”

It’s going to be hard. The Democrats have a narrow majority in both the U.S. House and Senate.

The Republicans are mobilizing for the 2022 midterms by doubling down on voter suppression. Voting rights was once a bipartisan issue. It no longer is. The Brennan Center for Justice reports that 253 bills by Republicans to restrict voting access have been introduced in 43 states so far this year.

In their first act, the Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate introduced the “For the People Act” (H.R. 1 and S.1). It would institute automatic voter registration, expand early voting, allow vote-by-mail for all who choose to vote that way (with postage prepaid) and restore voting rights to people with prior felony convictions. It would prohibit voter purges that kick eligible voters off the registration rolls. It would enhance election security with increased support for a voter-verified, paper-based voting system. It would end partisan gerrymandering by establishing independent redistricting commissions. It would prohibit providing false information about the election process. It would establish a small donor public financing system for elections funded by penalties on corporate wrongdoers.

We can create an egalitarian multi-racial democracy or we can increasingly become an authoritarian plutocracy.

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Educate, don’t evangelize (Re: “Promote veganism more,” Letters, Feb. 18, 2021).

Erica Sodos says that going vegan is “the best action we can take to help the environment and animals.” Not so; food choices are only one small piece.

Bluntly, humans must stop breeding like rabbits. Each additional person requires not just food, but clean water and air, a place to live, shelter (usually heated), clothing, sewer and sanitation, energy and more. A touch of “civilization” adds utensils, appliances, transportation, etc. The Earth cannot sustain its present population (let alone keep growing). If every human on the planet went vegan it would only help a little, certainly nowhere near enough to push us back to sustainability.

Sodos claims that nearly all animals we eat are killed as “babies” — an unhelpfully emotive word.

Moreover it’s simply inaccurate.

With few exceptions (veal, for example) the animals are mature. She also asserts that they live “horrific lives” — which was true but consumer awareness has changed that, and will continue to do so.

Food columns should educate us (and more). But veganism is a set of ethical principles not generally accepted, in part because they’re at odds with our evolved biology. As such, how much should this one viewpoint be “promoted” in contrast to say keto, paleo, etc.? Educate, don’t evangelize.

Dick Dunn/Hygiene

mum needed to save nature and ameliorate the worst impacts of climate change. From 2001-2017, Colorado lost over 1,000 square miles of natural lands to development for human purposes such as residential areas, energy development and transportation.

The conservation movement is gaining momentum. President Biden has laid out a 10-year goal of con-

serving 30% of the U.S. by 2030, an inclusive and bold vision for safeguarding America’s lands, water and wildlife. Let’s continue to accelerate this by uniting to protect 30% of Colorado’s public lands, or 20 million total acres, by 2030.

Colorado is an outdoor mecca that provides world class outdoor recreation, not to mention endless hunting and angling opportunities,

that I believe must be safeguarded for generations to come. Step forward with us to protect Colorado’s greatest asset — nature. We need your help asking Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper to publicly support the 30x30 Executive Order and make Colorado a conservation leader.

Thank you for your support thus far, let’s keep it up!

Ava Williams/Boulder

Make Colorado a conservation leader I am a concerned Coloradan.

Throughout the last 15 years of my life I’ve watched as the natural lands around me have been developed, forever changing my home. Born and raised in Boulder, the Rocky Mountains have given me the opportunity to make outdoor resources part of my daily life, teaching me the importance of conservation and environmental stewardship. With increasing drought, wildfires and extreme weather events, Colorado is on the front lines of land loss issues.

According to scientists, protecting 30% of public land is the bare miniBOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Betrayed

Why the industrial compost facility in East Boulder County should not be built

by Ken Robinson

W

hen it comes to Boulder County’s plan for an industrial composting facility: words matter. When elected officials make promises to voters that Open Space tax revenues will only be used to “perpetually” protect land with conservation easements, or to “forever” operate Open Space lands in compliance with strict and clear Open Space policies, nobody should ever have to worry those lands will be abused, developed, traded or industrialized for profit. Perpetual and forever, passive recreation and preservation are not ambiguous terms, nor should they ever be subject to future interpretation.

Boulder County’s proposed development of a composting facility on protected Open Space lands is an illinformed and dangerous land-use policy with the potential for long-term adverse consequences. It is nothing short of a betrayal of a sacred trust.

When residents realize their restricted Open Space tax dollars are involved in a bait-and-switch scheme, where the County gives protected lands to other County departments so the County can apply to itself for permission to develop and commercially operate the land, it will undermine voter support for future Open Space ballot measures.

If we have learned anything in the last year of political strife it is that facts also matter, but we are not getting the facts about the compost facility as evidenced by the comments of the Community Editorial Board in the Feb. 13, 2021 edition of the Daily Camera — predictable but uninformed and not helpful. It is all too easy, and perhaps a bit disingenuous, to readily dismiss neighboring objections as yet another NIMBY attack. However, 10

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resistance to the project goes far beyond the neighbors. For example, the Erie Board of Trustees recently passed a resolution opposing the project. As the discussion below demonstrates, opposition to the County’s proposed facility is anything but NIMBY. One of the problems in general is the County’s extravagant allocation of resources. We all long to live in a more organically sustainable world — to achieve that, we must invest our scarce human and economic resources in strategies that have environmental leverage in areas such as clean water and land conservation and management. But to apply such resources to an unproven and risky adventure is reckless.

When examined in full light, apart from all the project’s legal difficulties of the concept addressed in current lawsuits, the facts show that the proposed facility would not be what it is being made out to be, and the County should put our scarce resources toward more reliable strategies. The environmental cost/benefit and the economic cost/benefit tradeoffs are not being disclosed.

The County’s management of our Open Space lands has historically been less than stellar. Witness the fields of Open Space completely congested with Canada thistle, Bull thistle and Russian thistle, all invasive species.

Surely the founders of the Open Space program did not intend to create industrial thistle farms. We should focus our resources on better management of the land we already have.

Industrial compost The concept of a centralized composting center for our organic wastes MARCH 4, 2021

is attractive as a concept but, in reality, the facility does not pass muster by any measure. Do we really want to engage in such a risky undertaking?

We should avoid unintended consequences while we still have the chance.

First, it is important to understand what compost is and what it is not. There is no scientific definition of compost as we are using the term here. A colloquial definition of compost goes something like this: a mixture of organic matter such as from biological material that has decayed or has been digested by organisms, and which is then used to improve soil structure and provide nutrients.

The practice of composting derives historically from centuries of agrarian cultures that took advantage of natural processes of decay in their environment.

Beginning in the 1960s, the natural food movement co-opted the term organic as healthy and desirable, and that notion continues to this day.

Though technically organic refers to being carbon-based, the word has become the watchword for everything sustainable such that we are willing to pay a premium for organic products, while often shunning anything that is not “organic,” that which is “unsustainable.” To be clear, compost is not necessarily organic as we typically use the term.

Second, all compost is not the same. The County’s web site states: “The facility will be a Class III Composting Facility that will accept vegetative waste (leaves, grass, branches, limbs and forest materials) and animal waste, manure, food scraps and food processing vegetative waste.

Biosolids are being discussed and may I

be accepted in the future.” Compost from the County’s proposed facility will not be organic. Rather, it will be a manufactured product from an industrial facility using raw materials that may be toxic or infectious. In particular, per the County’s description, the process contemplates the use of socalled “biosolids,” which is merely a euphemism for treated sewage sludge.

Would you add treated sewage biosolids to your compost pile and then put that compost on your vegetable garden? Not in my backyard garden.

NIMBY-G. These ingredients have serious health and economic implications.

Nothing good comes from adding the highly concentrated waste solids from human waste treatment plants, and animal manure, into the composting process. This is certainly true when contemplating the application of the finished product to croplands producing food for human consumption.

We don’t need the compost produced by this facility.

Third, it is important to understand the environmental risks from such a facility. To see clearly what is at risk, the auras of organic and sustainability must be stripped from discussions of the County’s compost product. Many environmental risks associated with industrial compost have not been fully evaluated — anywhere. For example, in a scathing 2018 report, the EPA Office of Inspector General noted the agency could not properly regulate biosolids, even if it sincerely tried, because “it lacked the data or risk assessment tools needed to make a determination on the safety of 352 pollutants found in biosolids.” The EPA identified 352 pollutants in biosolids but cannot yet consider these BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

pollutants for further regulation due to either a lack of data or risk assessment tools. Pollutants found in biosolids can even include pharmaceuticals, steroids and flame retardants.

Contamination is by far the biggest problem for municipal composting programs. Following are some of the contaminant risks the County’s proposed facility will create, risks the County has largely ignored or dismissed with vague, euphemistic assertions that the problems will be “managed” or “mitigated.”

Airborne particulate risk. This is the subject of the most comprehensive analyses of many peer-reviewed and published scientific papers/studies which confirm risk to workers and those close by, but research methods have not yet been applied to understand fully — or to rule out — risk to communities downwind. With the local weather patterns and winds, Erie does not deserve to be the first largescale test sample. Also, important to note, these studies are not analyzing facilities of comparable scale to that of the County, nor those using mixed feedstocks that include massive volumes of animal and human waste in addition to food waste, grass clippings and other yard waste (leaves, tree branches, etc.).

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from composting.

The only studies analyzing this component of emissions are from substantially smaller composting facilities and operations that primarily include only yard clippings. A report based on the study of such operations conducted by University of California Davis researchers nevertheless clearly identifies, among other VOCs, formaldehyde and benzene.

Microplastics. This is a major and emerging environmental risk from the precise type of industrial-scale, mixedstream composting being proposed by the County. Just as microplastics are being identified as a massive threat to global marine ecosystem health, researchers are realizing that microplastics created in composting similarly disperse into the soil and water around composting centers — and everywhere the compost is applied to the soil — and then bioaccumulates.

Interestingly, Eco-Cycle provides a reasonable resource base on the topic.

Soil/water contamination risk from human sewage sludge. This is another area of emerging science and BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

understanding. In short, nothing good comes from adding the highly-concentrated waste solids from human waste treatment plants, and animal manure, into the composting process.

This is certainly true when contemplating the application of the finished product to croplands producing food for human consumption.

Unintended consequences The Rainbow Nursery land is not now nor has it ever been zoned industrial, and for good reason. It sits in a prime agricultural area and the conservation easement the County procured in 1994 reflects that intended use. It must remain so or else there will be unacceptable risks, and consequences that are foreseeable even if not intended.

Unfortunately, the County has not seriously analyzed these risks such that the necessary mitigation strategies can even be identified. The County’s characterization of its management approach is aspirational at best. Most certainly this will not be a zero-emissions facility in any respect.

There are so many uncertainties in municipal composting some states have had to close their facilities. For example, in Delaware, the Willington Compost Facility had so many problems -it was forced to close less than five years after it began operations.

The Willington facility was employing the very same “Advanced Gore” technology as the County proposes here and it is, as yet, an unproven technology for manufacturing marketable industrial compost. Between mid-2012 and its closure in fall 2014, the facility received hundreds of odor complaints, notices of violation from the state, and complaints about plastic and glass contamination in the compost.

As a result, though recommendations were made in an attempt to mitigate the problems, the operations continued to suffer from contamination, and from odor problems reaching out into area neighborhoods and businesses, even though buffer areas were in place. On Oct. 20, 2014, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, in the face of permit violations, refused to renew the facility’s permit, thus shutting down operations. Good intentions are pavers for many useless roads. The County’s should not be one of those roads to I

nowhere except, perhaps, failure.

The City of Everest, Washington, learned its own hard lessons with its compost facility also using the very same Gore technology. There, objectionable odors traveled some 15 miles from the facility. That installation has been involved in years of litigation, a class-action involving more than 300 plaintiffs, which has resulted in millions of dollars in settlement.

Also, as the City of Seattle discovered, controlling the quality of the compost when you can’t control the inputs is a challenge. Consumers who bought the compost from the City’s facility in the 1980s reported that it killed certain garden plants. The problem was traced to clopyralid, an herbicide. When Washington state banned the use of the herbicide on lawns, the composting program recovered. But municipal composting feedstock will nevertheless still include materials that have been treated with chemicals.

Market considerations Marketability of industrial compost is a key component of the success of municipal composting, and composting only works as a form of recycling if the resulting product is marketable. It is telling that none of the County’s feasibility studies actually support the municipal compost project, and one study in 2014 actually concludes that the facility would not be economically feasible. You can find the studies on the County’s web site. An excerpt from an analysis of the County’s proposal by an industry expert illustrates the potential economic impact of the toxic substances.

The operators should be aware of the risks involved with handling biosolids and the potential re-classification of this substance by the EPA as a toxic material, preventing its use in land application. “Though the government is reacting slowly or ignoring problems, companies like Whole Foods, Dole, Heinz and Del Monte won’t buy crops grown in biosolids, while Switzerland, the Netherlands and other countries have banned it.”

(The Guardian, Oct. 2019).

One “benefit” of the facility promoted by the County is reduced emissions by limiting the waste transportation distances, but this concept ignores the fact that other jurisdictions would be sending their organic MARCH 4, 2021

wastes to Boulder and that would negate any emissions benefit. Further, what happens if the local citizens become educated about the risks and unknowns about the County’s facility decline to use the County’s product?

What then becomes of the product?

Demand would largely be commercial and the manufactured compost will be transported to other, distant sites willing to accept such material in large trucks with additional emissions that the facility was intended to reduce.

There’s that darn road of good intentions again.

County Commissioners It is not inaccurate to name the proposed facility for what it is, to wit, an industrial factory that produces a manufactured, potentially toxic product, a factory without walls perhaps, but a factory nonetheless, and with all of the attendant impacts and consequences.

We surely need forward-looking strategies to manage our waste problems and other environmental concerns, but the human and economic resources required to build and operate this facility would be better put to developing more and better creative management techniques for our precious public lands. Certainly, better organic waste management practices are necessary as we move further into this ever more complex world, but this factory is not one of them.

The Rainbow Nursery land was purchased with tax money earmarked for the County’s Open Space program.

To now suddenly reverse course and construct an industrial plant on the Open Space property is a breach of the County’s sacred trust, and a breach of its fiduciary duty to its citizens.

Aldous Huxley has been quoted as saying: “Facts don’t cease to exist because they are ignored.” If you truly care about the value of our Open Spaces, please urge our County Commissioners to get the facts, all the facts, before they decide to go forward with an unwarranted and ill-advised expenditure of our scarce resources.

We deserve nothing less. We certainly don’t deserve to be betrayed.

Ken Robinson is a concerned citizen, who formerly practiced as an environmental engineer. He is currently a practicing attorney and has lived in Boulder for more than 40 years.

This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

New Colorado bill prohibits using an immigrant’s status as extortion

by Angela K. Evans

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t’s not every day you read about legislation that passes with unanimous, bipartisan support.

But, on Monday, March 1, the Colorado House of Representatives passed — 64 to 0 — House Bill 21-1057, which expands current extortion law to include threatening immigrants with reporting their status to law enforcement to cover up a crime.

“It is a really positive step forward in protecting immigrants in our community because now we’ll be able to charge criminal offenses when someone is being threatened with immigration consequences,” says Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty, who testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee in support of the bill. “We’ve seen actual cases where that gap, those defects in the statute are an issue for us.”

In 2006, Colorado criminalized prospective extortion of immigrants, making it illegal to use someone’s immigration status as a way to illicit money or anything of value from them. The new law adds to the definition of extortion the use of someone’s immigration status in an attempt to prevent them from doing something within their legal rights, namely reporting a crime like withholding wages, child abuse, sex trafficking or domestic abuse.

“We have seen over the years that undocumented immigrants are threatened with reporting to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) if they don’t perform free overtime or expand the work that they’re doing to things that maybe they wouldn’t want to do, or just plain old working without being paid. So, I think this is a really important expansion in those definitions,” says Laurel Herndon, executive director and managing attorney at the Immigrant Legal Center of Boulder County.

Dougherty, too, has plenty of examples of immigration status being used to exploit workers.

In a recent Boulder County case, a general contractor withheld wages from five subcontractors, threatening to report them to ICE when they demanded the money. “We had difficulty charging it as an extortion since it was a threat to keep money already given as opposed to inducing someone to give money in the future,” Dougherty says.

He’s also seen cases where domestic violence abusers have threatened to report their victim’s immigration status to authorities, threatening deportation and separation from children. In anothBOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

er example, Dougherty prosecuted a case years ago where a brother was in the country legally, but his two sisters were undocumented. Over several years, he sexually assaulted both of his sisters, who lived with him, constantly threatening to report them to ICE if they ever reported the abuse.

“That threat would not be covered by the current extortion statute. So we’d only be able to prosecute the sexual offense, not the threat,” he says.

“But when you think about the impact of this threat, to me, that’s what kept them there.”

Anne Tapp, executive director of Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (SPAN) Boulder, says about 75% of undocumented survivors the organization works with haven’t contacted law enforcement because their abuser has threatened to disclose their status to ICE. “The abuser’s threat to report an undocumented survivor to law enforcement is one of the primary reasons that a survivor doesn’t call the police and may even be reluctant to reach out to other community support systems,” she says. “And it’s not an idle threat.”

Recently, Tapp says, SPAN worked with a survivor whose abuser did report her to ICE and she was detained.

“Immigrants at any point of documentation fear the potential of having their status in the community threatened, and oftentimes people are told things by an abuser or an employer ... that may not even be true,” she adds. “Even if they have permission to work in the community, if their employer or their abuser tells them that actually if they’re reported to the police, that right will be taken away, they may believe them.”

Sarah Shikes, executive director of Denver’s Centro Humanitario Para Los Trabajadores (El Centro), which supports day laborers and domestic workers through its day center, agrees. She says predatory employers have even threatened El Centro staff, despite the fact the organization keeps no record of immigration status for those they serve.

“For day laborers and domestic workers there’s so many barriers and they are definitely vulnerable to all sorts of different types of exploitation,” she says. “There’s a fear amongst immigrants, Latinos, low-wage workers, people of color who are challenged in so many ways in accessing jobs.”

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Now that the bill has passed the House, it heads to the Senate, sponsored by Republican Sen. John Cooke, former sheriff of Weld County, where it’s expected to pass without much, if any, dissent.

“Extortion is wrong no matter who it is being applied against,” Cooke says. “We need to protect people from crimes. You can’t commit other crimes against illegal immigrants, so we need to make sure this one is added in there.”

It’s a bill about public safety, as much as anything else, says Rep. Dylan Roberts, who sponsored the bill in the House and is also a deputy district attorney for Eagle County. The law is supported by all 22 Colorado district attorneys, Republicans and Democrats alike.

“If we, as a society, value public safety and want to make sure that crime and domestic violence is prosecuted, then we need to ensure that victims never fear consequences because they’re reporting something bad that happened to them,” he says. “A victim is a victim regardless of their immigration status.”

Roberts says he expects the bill will be on Gov. Polis’ desk and signed into law by the end of March.

But it could still take some time to educate communities across the state how it could protect them.

And, it’ll take some successful prosecutions under the expanded law to give concrete examples to the community and public at large. The penalty carries the possibility of 2-6 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000.

“This is a great step in the right direction, but there’s a lot more that we need to do to support immigrants in the community,” Tapp says.

There are several other bills making their way through the legislative process this year that could do just that. One would allow roll back restrictions prohibiting undocumented immigrants from licensed jobs like electricians, lawyers, day care workers and dental hygienists. Another would reverse a ban on jurisdictions providing public benefits to those without legal status.

“It’s time to get beyond the prevention of threats to immigrants and actually move into recognizing immigrants as full community members, which we in Boulder County have long declared,” Herndon says. “We want people to have affirmative opportunities, not just protections against the worst possible treatment.”

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

JULIE VANDENOEVER

MONA ESPOSITO

A crazy amount of zucchini The benefits of community gardening, especially during the pandemic

by Angela K. Evans

W

hen the pandemic hit last March, interest in community gardens around Boulder County skyrocketed. Some people found themselves with the time to garden, perhaps for the first time. Others could see the benefit from growing their own food, at a time of uncertainty about the safety of food production and grocery stores around the country. People were also looking for a chance to get outside and connect with people in a safe, socially distanced way.

“It was this quote unquote safe space where you could be and feel pretty normal, to be outside, but to have other people around you, not to feel isolated and be able to connect with people,” says Mona Esposito, who has been gardening with local nonprofit Growing Gardens for years, and planted in a community garden in Aspen before that.

“It’s what we’ve all been missMARK IVINS ing so much.”

As growing season quickly approaches in 2021, community gardening is just as popular as ever, as people relish the idea of growing their own food, knowing where it comes from, and keeping it sanitary as the pandemic rages on. This year, when registration first opened up in February, Lauren Kelso, site director for Growing Gardens, says “it was bananas for 24 hours.” For the most part, Growing Gardens, which manages approximately 400 plots across its seven locations in Boulder County, has no room left, with the exception of Kerr garden in Louisville. But, other independent gardens at churches or in neighborhoods may still have availability. And there’s always the waitlist.

Pandemic aside, for those who live in apartment buildings or retirement communities, lack of backyard space is often why people choose community garden plots. Some homeowners maybe have inefficient sunlight in their yards. But there are many other benefits to community gardening besides just access to suitable land.

“One of the overwhelming things I heard from gardeners last year was the incredible impact that it was having on people’s mental health,” Kelso says.“There was a lot of BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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sort of gratitude that people had this kind of space to utilize.”

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Community gardening can also be more cost effective than A gardener at growing in your backyard, as there are plenty of shared resourcGrowing Gardens es from tools to water to help getting started. And most gardens Hawthorne location; offer additional educational opportunities for newcomers and Mona Esposito’s garden plot; seasoned gardeners alike. Growing Gardens has plenty of Gardeners at online material — for those with plots or for home gardeners — Longmont covering everything from gardening basics to garden design Community Gardens. and planning. Plus, there’s nothing like learning from gardeners in neighboring plots.

“One of the biggest benefits that I’ve seen so far is just having that community that gardens with you and seeing everybody else’s techniques and learning from them,” says Lance Cayko, president of the nonprofit Longmont Community Gardens, which, in partnership with the City of Longmont, manages and fosters the garden at 11th Avenue.

These gardens provide a space to connect with others from a variety of walks of life, while also offering myriad ways to contribute to the overall community.

“Community gardens historically are super eclectic. It’s one of the of the few places where you really can bring together diverse people side by side, all these different personalities, different levels of experience,” Esposito says.

She says some of the gardeners she knows have been at the community plot for more than 30 years. Others, like a young couple right across from her, just started in 2020. There are retired farmers and chefs with their own plots too. Most gardens are open to the public, creating outdoor spaces for folks to walk around and enjoy the scenery, while talking to gardeners they may never come across in their day-to-day lives.

Community gardens also create habitat for essential pollinators and birds in the middle of the city, which help maintain, even increase, biodiversity. And most donate excess produce to food banks and other partners, helping feed those in the community who are food insecure.

“We’ll hit these real heavy points in the summer, like sometimes we’ll have just like a crazy amount of zucchini, everybody is always trying to get rid of zucchini,” Cayko says. “And so we’ll have a bin that people can put their excess vegetables in and then we’ll have a volunteer that takes them to the Our Center in Longmont.”

At Growing Gardens, excess food is donated to community partners like There with Care, for families facing critical illness, and the Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA). Individuals are also encouraged to donate extra produce on their own.

And most gardens have some sort of community service requirement. At all of Growing Gardens’ plots, gardeners have to give four hours of volunteer service per plot, per year to the garden, whether that’s helping fix the fences or helping a neighbor with weeding. They can also organize a food donation, help take care of a plot for someone who is sick or volunteer at events and with the Cultiva Youth Project, which engages young people in urban farming, growing produce for the CSA and other community partners.

As Esposito says: “There are all these opportunities to engage in community.”

Perhaps that’s the biggest benefit of community gardens, right there in the title.

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LYNN GOLDSMITH

A STEP INTO THE UNKNOWN Always the innovator, Todd Rundgren’s virtual tour stops by 25 cities, including Denver

by Alan Sculley

TODD RUNDGREN has long been

known as an innovator within the music world. Savvy in technology, he designed the first-ever graphics tablet for Apple in 1979, staged the first live interactive television concert in 1978 and the first live national cablecast of a rock concert in 1982. He also offered the first commercial music downloads in 1992, the first online direct artist subscription service, PatroNet, in 1998, and the first fulllength concert shot with multiple virtual reality 360-degree cameras in 2016.

His latest venture is into a different kind of livestreaming event — a virtual tour in which he and his band will play shows “in” 25 cities — by designating each performance for a specific city.

Rundgren is actually not the first act to roll out a virtual tour.

Jim Brickman did a virtual holiday tour at the end of 2020 and Steve Wynn (of the Dream Syndicate) is currently doing a similar outing. But those tours weren’t as long or the shows weren’t as elaborate as what Rundgren is doing. That makes Rundgren’s Clearly Human virtual tour a step into the unknown, and Rundgren, during a video conference interview in late January, admitted his venture has significant risks.

“Since nobody’s attempted to do this particular thing before, 16

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we’re still learning a lot about all of ON THE BILL: TODD RUNDGREN ‘Clearly these issues,” he said. “In the traHuman’ virtual tour. ditional touring environment, you March 12, Denver. A limithave local promoters who guaraned amount of 19 socially tee the events. They send you like distant in-person tickets are available per show. half of the guarantee to ensure Tickets start at $35, that you’ll show up, and this toddrundgren.nocapbecomes your financing to develop shows.com your show. And you kind of know how many tickets you’ve sold well before the gigs.

“For these online things, ticket sales start out really slow because people know it’s not actually a physical seat they’re fighting for,” Rundgren said. “I was talking to Joe Bonamassa, who did a big event. It wasn’t a tour. It was just a singular online event. He said it wasn’t until 72 hours before the event that the ticket sales started to actually happen.

So we’re in that kind of situation right now. By the time the first show starts, I’ll probably be in for about a million dollars, all my own resources, because I’ve got no promoters. I’m the promoter of the shows. And ... it’s pretty scary. We don’t know exactly what kind of response we’re going to get.”

Rundgren will have a good sense of how his “tour” is faring by the time the March 12 date designated for Denver and Boulder arrives. But he did his part to make his livestreamed shows bona fide events. For one thing, he’s assembled a 10-piece band that includes horns and backup singers — a much larger unit than he could usually afford to take out on an actual tour.

He’s also making a tangible effort to make it feel like he’s actually playing in each city on the tour route, even though every show will actually emanate from the same venue in Chicago.

Rundgren is using specifically tailored video to highlight landmarks and other signature places and things for each city, and I

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

the menu for the band and crew will feature food associated specifically with the city in which Rundgren and his band are playing that evening.

The set list for the current virtual tour is different than Rundgren would bring out on a normal tour. The show will focus on material from his 1989 album Nearly Human, while leaving room for songs from across his solo career, spanning back to his 1970 debut solo album, Runt.

He quickly cemented his status as one of rock’s most talented songwriters with the 1972 album Something/Anything, followed a year later by A Wizard, a True Star. During the early 1970s, he also formed his long-running band Utopia, and between his solo and Utopia albums, he went on to pursue a diverse, innovative and occasionally experimental musical path that has seen him touch upon most every type of pop music, as well as progressive rock, electronic music and more. Along the way, he’s notched several hit singles, including “Hello, It’s Me,” “Can We Still Be Friends?” and “Bang on the Drum All Day,” and also developed a prolific and successful career producing albums for other artists.

Nearly Human stands as one of Rundgren’s most notable — and innovative — solo efforts. It was recorded in an era when digital technology was new and popular, and albums were commonly recorded one instrument at a time, using upwards of 72 tracks. Rundgren decided to buck the trends and record Nearly Human as a band live in the studio, using as many musicians as needed to get the instrumental parts he envisioned for the songs. Few of the musicians involved had recorded live as a band in the studio, and the excitement of that experience worked to the album’s benefit.

“You’re performing the record, but you also realize that everything that’s in the record is in your ear and you’re hearing the record that people are going to hear when it’s finished at the same time that you’re actually performing it,” Rundgren explained. “So it puts you in this weird, euphoric, kind of mystical space.”

Musically, Nearly Human brought out a soul influence in Rundgren’s music that had shown up only on occasion on his previous albums. That style, coupled with a collection of consistently well crafted songs, helped make Nearly Human one of his most distinctive and best solo albums. The emphasis on soul was very much by plan, Rundgren said.

“I did make a conscious decision that I wanted to take being an R&B singer more seriously,” he said. “There were so many R&B influences in my singing, I BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

mean, most notably Stevie Wonder, but also R&B singers like Eddie Levert of the O’Jays, innumerable great R&B singers.

So I, in a certain way, bit the bullet by writing material that required me to do that. That was probably the greater challenge, or at least equal challenge, was coming up with material that a white guy can sing, but doesn’t attempt to go outside of my legitimate experience. I can’t suddenly pretend that I grew up in Harlem or something like that, you know.

“I have to say that I learned so much during the course of the production of the record, and then learned even more

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when we had to take it out on the road and do it,” Rundgren added. “I had to build the stamina for that kind of thing, that it’s not simply hitting the notes and having the stamina to be able to get through the show, but being able to abandon yourself in a certain way to the material so that it doesn’t come out the same way all of the time. [I think part of the appeal of] R&B is that you want to constantly explore the material as much as you can. You don’t ever sing it exactly the same way because that’s when it starts to lose its meaning for you. You’re just like doing the work, but you’re not feeling

MARCH 4, 2021

it. Yeah, it was a great period in my life, especially because that’s the kind of commitment I made and I felt very... well, something changed, I guess, in me as a singer. Previous to that I always had a certain apprehension about it, and also my technique was kind of spotty. So I would be in the position of occasionally losing my voice. But I think the long-term end product of that process of me trying to re-learn singing and stuff like that (is) my voice today is as good as it’s ever been. I have stamina. I can sing those two hours with ease. But more importantly, I really enjoy it.”

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events

If your organization is planning an event of any kind, please email Caitlin at crockett@boulderweekly.com.

DAIRY ARTS CENTER PRESENTS CREATIVE NATIONS CONVERSATIONS WITH WALT POURIER.

7 p.m. Thursday, March 4, via Zoom. Free. Register: thedairy. org/events/creative-nations-conversations-with-walt-pourier Join Dairy Arts Center’s Executive Director Melissa Fathman for the first in a series of Zoom conversations with Walt Pourier. Founder of Nakota Designs and the Stronghold Society, Pourier is Oglala Lakota, an American skateboarder, artist, designer, skateboarding activist and a thought-provoking speaker. He paints and designs on skateboards, canvas and other materials, and was Artist-in-Residence at the Denver Art Museum in 2017. These conversations will cover everything from creative movements to indigenous prophecies, from skateboarding to rock stars.

STORIES ON STAGE PRESENTS ‘LINDA AND ME: RAISED ON RONSTADT’ — LIVESTREAMED FROM BOULDER’S NOMAD PLAYHOUSE.

7 p.m. Friday, March 5. Tickets are $15 and available at storiesonstage.org or by calling 303-494-0523. Ticket holders will receive a link to the performance.

Linda Ronstadt’s memoir, Simple Dreams, provides the backdrop for this show featuring GerRee Hinshaw, actor, singer and host of Denver’s longest-running openmic variety show, Freak Train. As a child, Hinshaw idolized Linda Ronstadt and found great inspiration in her songs. Now Hinshaw stars in this warm and funny musical tribute, based on Ronstadt’s memoirs, about discovering who you are and following your dream no matter what.

MOTUS THEATER PRESENTS ‘WE WERE STRANGERS’ — WITH CAROLINE SALIMAN, ARMANDO PENICHE AND TERESITA LOZANO.

6:30 p.m. Saturday, March 6, via Zoom, motustheater.org/events Caroline Saliman, a teacher at Congregation Har HaShem and the Boulder JCC, will be reading aloud Armando Peniche’s autobiographical story of racial profiling experienced as a 12-year-old boy, and the danger of slanderous rhetoric to an undocumented man and his American son. The monologue is followed by a musical response from a cappella soloist Teresita Lozano, who hails from a Mexican crypto-Jewish background.

SEVENTH ANNUAL LONGMONT PUBLIC LIBRARY PEEPS DIORAMA CONTEST.

DIVIDED WE STAND: ON THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY.

7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 4, Livestreamed to Facebook, LongmontPublicMedia.org, and Local Comcast Channel 8/880, longmontcolorado.gov A diverse panel of socially engaged individuals from across the political spectrum will discuss how people might work together to create a less divided society. Presented live from Longmont Museum’s Stewart Auditorium, just tune in to Longmont Museum’s Facebook LIVE, LongmontPublicMedia.org or Local Comcast Channel 8/880.

All dioramas must be submitted by midnight, Friday, March 19, tinyurl.com/y49d8uyp The PEEPs Literary Diorama Contest will once again be held online this year. Dioramas will be submitted virtually through social media or email, and voting will be conducted on Facebook. Contestants may begin submitting photos of their dioramas in three age categories: adult (ages 14+); tween (ages 9-13); and kid (ages 8 and younger). Prizes will be awarded in a number of categories. Participants can enter the contest by submitting photographs of their diorama, along with their name, diorama title and age category to the Library through Facebook Messenger, direct message on Twitter, or by email to Library.Marketing@LongmontColorado.gov. To vote for the Peeple’s Choice award winner, the public can visit the Library’s Facebook page, view the PEEPS Diorama Contest 2021 photo album between Friday, March 26 and Thursday, April 1, and “like” their favorite diorama. Alternately, voters can send the name of their favorite diorama to the aforementioned Library email. Contest winners in all the categories will be announced on Friday, April 2. Complete rules can be found on the Library’s website. see EVENTS page 20

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SEE

ART

BMOCA VIRTUAL STUDIO TOUR: NARKITA GOLD.

THREE ACTS: A SURVEY OF SHAME, EMOTION, AND OBLIVION.

Opening reception, 6 p.m. Saturday, March 6, RedLine Contemporary Art Center, 2350 Arapahoe St., Denver. Timed entry reservation required: tinyurl.com/cn5pw7k3 In 2020, with the U.S. grappling with its past, present and future, Todd Herman found himself deeply contemplating shame.

“What can we learn about how we regulate, uphold or challenge social norms, hierarchies or transgressions when shame is activated?” Herman, the artist, filmmaker and photographer who owns Boulder’s east window KACY JUNG HEATHER OELKLAUS gallery, explains in an email. “How can this powerful moral emotion turn inward, to ourselves, to our bodies, often catalyzing self-harm, selfnegation, self-reflection, self-evaluation as well as healing?”

Herman wanted to HEATHER OELKLAUS use art to explore these questions, and he wanted outside input. So he invited photographers, writers, visual artists and anyone else who was interested to submit artwork that addressed their experiences with shame.

The nearly 300 photographs, collages, drawings and texts that were submitted in response will be part of a new collaborative three-part exhibition called Three Acts: Shame, Emotion, and Oblivion at Denver’s RedLineContemporary Art Center, opening on March 6.

“A forum for such queries seems particularly relevant at a time when our respective relationships to a climate of amplified national and global conservatism, xenophobia, racism, transphobia, homophobia and ableism have been significantly challenged,” Herman says of the exhibition.

In addition to Herman’s photography collective exploring shame and privilege, the Denver Collage Club and Alto Gallery collaborate for a second act that dives into the phenomenon of cancel culture and the existential crisis spurred by the pandemic. The final piece of the exhibit features the Unperson Project, an “archive of oblivion” from the Mexico City-based curatorial duo Andrea Tejeda and Susana Moyaho.

“Together, Three Acts carries the sentiment, crisis and response to these times,” reads a statement from RedLine.

Shame Radiant, as Herman calls his photo project, offers a variety of photographs that Herman says “look at deeply intimate, broadly political, emotional, physical, social, sexual, interpersonal, intergenerational and institutional aspects of shame.”

“Shame Radiant offers an opportunity for participants as well as viewers to explore more of the personhood and less of the pathology of our collective as well as our outlying experiences of shame,” he says.

— Caitlin Rockett

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Noon. Thursday, March 4 via Instagram Live. Free, bmoca.org Virtual Studio Tours are 30-minute interactive programs that explore local contemporary artist studios. On March 4, visit the studio of Narkita Gold, a Denver-based artist who has been honing her skills in digital photography since 2009. Her first creative endeavor, Black in Denver, is a portrait and interview series that takes a critical look at identity, solitude and the evolution of the self. To access the Virtual Studio Tours live, navigate to BMoCA’s Instagram profile and click on the circular icon with BMoCA’s logo. Videos can also be watched after they air.

NOBO SPACE PRESENTS ‘TRIGGER WARNINGS.’

March 6-March 31, NoBo SPACE, 4929 Broadway, Suite E, Boulder,.

Trigger Warnings is a two-person show featuring video and photographs by Alex Sweetman and Paula Gillen. Sweetman’s two-hour video, 2020 PTSD, features TV news photos from 2020. Also on exhibit is his video Aspen Daze, which features early photographs from 1969-70 in Aspen. Paula Gillen will be showing early photographs featured in her photo book Head Trip: The 80s. Gallery will be open Thursday through Sunday from 1-6 p.m.

MCA DENVER SPRING VIRTUAL PROGRAMMING LINEUP.

Starting noon, March 10. All programs are available FREE to stream on YouTube. More information can be found at mcadenver.org The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver will be offering a slate of live, free virtual programming this spring, in conjunction with three new exhibitions now on view: Keith Haring: Grace House Mural; Colorado in the Present Tense: Narkita Gold, Rick Griffith, Nathan Hall, and Maia Ruth Lee; and Jaime Carrejo: Waiting. The spring programming includes a four-part lecture series about Keith Haring in conjunction with his exhibition. The program series begins with the iconic Grace House Mural and the history of the staircase in art, music and film (noon, March 10, with Carlo McCormick and Gil Vazquez); followed by a in-depth look at street art from the subways of the 1980s to its present day use as an agent of social change featuring artist Swoon; then an exploration of dance with choreography and Haring collaborator Muna Tseng and Denver-based dancer Samantha Weese; and finally a discussion of the 1980s AIDS crisis through the eyes of filmmakers Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman.

BMOCA AT FRASIER — FRANK SAMPSON: ART OF MAGICAL AND MYSTERIOUS FANTASY.

Through June 13. Available to Frasier residents and to the public as public health restrictions ease. Frasier Meadows, 350 Ponca Place, Boulder, bmoca.org Frank Sampson prefers we abandon the search for meaning in his paintings and encourages us instead to lose ourselves in his visually complex and richly colored canvases. In his works, flora, fauna and people live in harmonious yet puzzling, enchanting, and sometimes disquieting environments in truly magical and mysterious fantasy worlds. see EVENTS page 20

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We’re here so you can Live and Die Your Values.

events

BOULDER COMEDY SHOW.

Seth

Karen

Dan

Thank you for voting us for Best New Business & Best Independent Business

Colorado’s 1st Holistic Funeral Home and End-of-Life Resource Center

102 West Chester Street (Just off S. Public Rd in downtown Lafayette) Parking: South of our center off the alley, or in public lot on S. Public, by the florist.

Call (720) 515-2344 for info thenaturalfuneral.com

5 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 7, Rayback Collective, 2775 Valmont Road, Boulder. Tickets are $15-$100, bouldercomedyshow.com The Boulder Comedy Show was established in 2013 by local comedian and CU alumnus Brent Gill, a nationally touring comedian, Comedy Works headliner, and featured performer on Viceland and the BBC. The socially distanced standup show happens every Sunday at the Rayback Collective, featuring some of the best working comics in the industry today. The headliner for March 7 will be Abby Rosenquist, a New York-based comedian whose dark, fast-paced material has placed her on the schedule at prestigious festivals including Just for Laughs in Montreal, Moontower Comedy and Oddity Festival, and the Oddball Comedy Festival. Rosenquist made her television debut on Fuse’s Uproarious and won the title of Philly’s Phunniest Person in 2017.

BOULDER ENVIRONMENTAL / NATURE / OUTDOORS FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS WOMEN’S ADVENTURE FILM TOUR 2021.

Monday, March 8-15. Tickets are $12, boulderenoff.org/virtual-cinema The Women’s Adventure Film Tour is a celebration of inspiring women doing extraordinary things in the name of adventure. But being adventurous doesn’t always have to mean being the fastest, going the highest or doing the most extreme things. This year’s lineup features a diverse set of films featuring women of all ages and backgrounds, including Australian Olympic hopeful Lucy Stirling, New Zealand Olympian Janina Kuzma, World Champion Paraglider Klaudia Bulgakow and many more women in snow sports, mountaineering, highlining, swimming and mountain biking. The lineup features nine short films across 115 minutes.

NINTH ANNUAL BOULDER JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL.

Open Range Competition Teams Summer Day Camps Classes & Private Lessons

Target & Hunting Full Service Retail Pro Shop & Service Recurve & Compound

High Altitude Archery 455 Weaver Park Rd #500 Longmont, CO 80501 720-491-3309

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March 10-21. Individual film tickets are $15; all-access tickets are $180, boulderjcc.org The Boulder Jewish Film Festival (BJFF) will be entirely virtual, available for streaming at your convenience from March 10-21. Join in for talkback series with directors, producers, actors and experts throughout the festival. All-access passes are available for $180 per household. Passes are available only in Colorado.

The festival will include: 16 films; an exclusive retrospective tribute to international director Pierre Sauvage; two shorts programs; six international features; and Israeli Director Dani Menkin presenting two Boulder premieres.

DAIRY ARTS CENTER PRESENTS A COMMUNITY EMBRACE EVENT WITH THE INTERVIEW GAME.

7 p.m. Wednesday, March 10 (and following Wednesday evenings).

Tickets are $15/couple, thedairy.org.

Feeling disconnected — physically and emotionally — from people you care about these days? The Dairy Arts Center wants to help. You and whoever you’d like to connect with will both need to have a good internet connection and a computer with a webcam, and a guide will walk you through The Interview Game, a series of expertly designed questions intended to help you connect more deeply. Participants meet first in a group on Zoom, get oriented, and then pairs break out into private virtual spaces to work through questions. After an hour, the group regathers for an opportunity to share. After the event, you have access to a copy of The Interview Game to play whenever, with whomever.

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music

music

Call 720.253.4710 All credit cards accepted No text messages

BOULDER SYMPHONY PRESENTS ‘TRUE LOVE.’

6 and 8 p.m. Thursday, March 4, Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder. Tickets are $40$65, bouldertheater.com Celebrate music from the last 100 years to today that brings the greatest love stories to life. Program includes Adagietto from Mahler’s 5th Symphony; Debussy’s Danse sacrée et Danse profane featuring Harpist Hillary Schefter; and Tchaikovsky’s String Serenade.

BOULDER OPERA: ‘LE NOZZE DI FIGARO.’

Saturday, March 6-14. The Spark, 4847 Pearl St., Suite B4, Boulder.

Tickets are $30-$35, boulderoperacompany.com/the-marriage-of-figaro In the Almaviva household, servant couple Figaro and Susanna are to be married later in the evening — but the Count has amorous designs on Susanna. Figaro and Susanna, together with the rejected Countess and page boy Cherubino, contrive an elaborate plot to outwit the Count. Much mayhem ensues. These performances will be semi outdoor (with heating lamps). Face covering and social distancing are required at all times.

Boulder’s Local Music Shop Since 1971 Shop online at hbwoodsongs.com for no contact pickup or free local delivery (on purchases over $20).

Open to customers or for pick-up with these new hours of operations: Mon.-Sat. 12-5 pm Sun. 12-4 pm

3101 28th St, Tebo Plaza, Boulder

303.449.0516

hbwoodsongs.com

AN EVENING WITH POLICULTURE.

7 p.m. Friday, March 5, Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder.

Tickets are $50, bouldertheater.com Forming in the foothills of Boulder in 2010, Policulture has developed a contemporary reggae sound shaped by heavy drum and bass, roots rhythm, melodic horns and conscious lyrics. The band has shared the stage with international touring acts including The Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, SOJA, Rebelution, John Brown’s Body and more.

COURTESY ALIVE PHOTO

AN EVENING WITH GREEN BUDDHA.

7 p.m. Thursday, March 11, Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder.

Tickets are $50, bouldertheater.com Green Buddha echoes dub rhythms through the Front Range with their unique brand of “No Coast Reggae.” The members of Green Buddha have brought their varied musical backgrounds together with an ear toward creating a distinct new reggae sound, one that speaks to Colorado’s mountain vibe.

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ROMAN ROBINSON

incredibly mature about it, says he thinks they’re best friends but something is missing and he doesn’t want to string my brother along. My brother is beyond devastated and at 34 it’s the first time he has ever been dumped when he was this in love. I’m trying to be supportive and help guide him through the pain, but he’s truly a wreck about it. I sympathize but to be completely honest I felt this kind of pain for the first time when I was around 15 or 16, and I’ve been with my current partner for 14 years. Do you think there’s anything different about how you walk someone through their first heartbreak in their 30s versus their teens?

— Helping A Brother In Turmoil

BY DAN SAVAGE Dear Dan: My younger brother is a 34-year-old gay man who got out of a really awful relationship about six months ago. Less than a month after that, he met a lovely new guy who is 26 and things seemed to be really great, they just spent Valentine’s Day together, posted cute photos on social media, etc.

Ten days after that the guy dumps my brother. He’s

ARIES

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: In late April of 1969, Cambridgeshire,

U.K., hosted the first-ever Thriplow Daffodil Weekend: a flower show highlighting 80 varieties of narcissus.

In the intervening years, climate change has raised the average temperature 3.24 degrees Fahrenheit.

So the flowers have been blooming progressively earlier each year, which has necessitated moving the festival back. The last pre-COVID show in 2019 was on March 23-24, a month earlier than the original.

Let’s use this as a metaphor for shifting conditions in your world. I invite you to take an inventory of how your environment has been changing, and what you could do to ensure you’re adapting to new conditions.

Dear Dan: You responded to GHOST, a gay man whose inability to achieve an erection is both a turnoff for him and an ego destroyer, in last week’s col-

poison gas for use in chemical warfare against China. These days it is a tourist attraction famous for its thousands of feral but friendly bunnies.

I’d love to see you initiate a comparable transmutation in the coming months, dear Cancerian: changing bad news into good news, twisted darkness into interesting light, soullessness into soulfulness. Now is a good time to ramp up your efforts.

APRIL 20-MAY 20: Author Leo Buscaglia told us that

among ancient Egyptians, two specific questions were key in evaluating whether a human life was well-lived. They were “Did you bring joy?” and “Did you find joy?” In accordance with your current astrological potentials, I’m inviting you to meditate on those queries. And if you discover there’s anything lacking in the joy you bring and the joy you find, now is a very favorable time to make corrections.

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: At age 11, the future first President of the

United States George Washington became the “owner” of 10 slaves. A few years later he “bought” 15 more.

By the time he was president, 123 men, women and children were struggling in miserable bondage under his control. Finally, in his will, he authorized them to be freed after he and his wife died. Magnanimous?

Hell, no. He should have freed those people decades earlier — or better yet, never “owned” them in the first place. Another Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin not only freed his slaves but became an abolitionist. By my count, at least 11 of the other Founding Fathers never owned slaves. Now here’s the lesson I’d like us to apply to your life right now: Don’t procrastinate in doing the right thing. Do it now.

CANCER

JUNE 21-JULY 22: During World War II, the Japanese island

I

Dear NNTBHTC: Thanks for sharing, NNTBHTC! Send questions to mail@savagelove.net, follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage

discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling,” wrote composer Claude Debussy. In the coming weeks, I hope you’ll regard his words as an incitement to do everything you can to reach the naked flesh of your feelings. Your ideas are fine. Your rational mind is a blessing. But for the foreseeable future, what you need most is to deepen your relationship with your emotions. Study them, please. Encourage them to express themselves. Respect their messages as gifts, even if you don’t necessarily act upon them.

BY ROB BREZSNY

LEO

JULY 23-AUG. 22: “Scars speak for you,” writes author

TAURUS

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Dear HABIT: Your brother got into a rebound relationship and got dumped — it sucks and it’s awful and it hurts, HABIT, but it happens all the time and people get over it. Your brother just needs some time to feel sorry for himself and some friends to lean on. Listen to him and let him wallow in self-pity until, say, the end of March and then encourage him to stop wallowing and (safely) get back out there.

umn. I wanted to add my perspective to your excellent reply. A lack of a hard-on does NOT mean GHOST needs be relegated to only servicing guys!

He can ejaculate if stimulated sufficiently! I have type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure (both under remediation from attending to my health better) and I was on a host of meds for my bipolar disorder until recently which both killed my erections and my libido. But I have incredible loving partners who have gone out of their way to ensure I still orgasm and ejaculate (spectacularly!) despite being either flaccid or only slightly firm. Very fulfilling orgasms are entirely possible like this, Dan! Actually a friend who had his prostate removed chimed in on this topic to say it was so for him too! And as I’ve worked on both my mental and physical health, my erections are returning along with my libido.

Perhaps that’s something GHOST could work on as well? And I want him to know that at age 57 I’m having some of the best sex of my life despite not being hard enough to penetrate anyone right now.

But who knows? Perhaps by age 60 I will again be rock hard again!

— No Need To Be Hard To Come!

Gena Showalter. “They say you’re strong, and you’ve survived something that might have killed others.” In that spirit, dear Leo, and in accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to authorize your scars to express interesting truths about you in the coming weeks. Allow them to demonstrate how resilient you’ve been, and how well you’ve mastered the lessons that your past suffering has made available.

Give your scars permission to be wildly eloquent about the transformations you’ve been so courageous in achieving.

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: According to novelist Doris Lessing,

“Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who’d be kind to me.” She implied that hardly anyone ever gets such an experience — or that it’s so rare as to be always tugging on our minds, forever a source of unquenched longing.

But I’m more optimistic than Lessing. In my view, the treasured exchange she describes is not so impossible. And I think it will especially possible for you in the coming weeks. I suspect you’re entering a grace period of being listened to, understood and treated kindly. Here’s the catch: For best results, you should be forthright in seeking it out.

LIBRA

SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: “How much has to be explored and

MARCH 4, 2021

SCORPIO

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: You may never wander out alone into a

dark forest or camp all night on a remote beach or encounter a mountain lion as you climb to a glacier near the peak of a rugged mountain. But there will always be a primeval wilderness within you — uncivilized lands and untamed creatures and elemental forces that are beyond your rational understanding.

That’s mostly a good thing! To be healthy and wise, you need to be in regular contact with raw nature, even if it’s just the kind that’s inside you. The only time it may be a hindrance is if you try to deny its existence, whereupon it may turn unruly and inimical. So don’t deny it!

Especially now. (P.S.: To help carry out this assignment, try to remember the dreams you have at night. Keep a recorder or notebook and pen near your bed.)

CAPRICORN

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: What are your edges, Capricorn? What

aspects of your identity straddle two different categories? Which of your beliefs embrace seemingly opposed positions? In your relations with other people, what are the taboo subjects? Where are the boundaries that you can sometimes cross and other times can’t cross? I hope you’ll meditate on these questions in the coming weeks. In my astrological opinion, you’re primed to explore edges, deepen your relationship with your edges and use your edges for healing and education and cultivating intimacy with your allies. As author Ali Smith says, “Edges are magic; there’s a kind of forbidden magic on the borders of things, always a ceremony of crossing over, even if we ignore it or are unaware of it.”

AQUARIUS

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: According to intermedia artist Sidney

Pink, “The idea of divine inspiration and an aha moment is largely a fantasy.” What the hell is he talking about?! That’s fake news, in my view. In the course of my creative career, I’ve been blessed with thousands of divine inspirations and aha moments.

But I do acknowledge that my breakthroughs have been made possible by “hard work and unwavering dedication,” which Sidney Pink extols. Now here’s the climax of your oracle: You Aquarians are in a phase when you should be doing the hard work and unwavering dedication that will pave the way for divine inspirations and aha moments later this year.

PISCES

SAGITTARIUS

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: “What damages a person most,” wrote

philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “is to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure — as a mere automaton of duty.” Once a year, I think every one of us, including me, should meditate on that quote. Once a year, we should evaluate whether we are living according to our soul’s code; whether we’re following the path with heart; whether we’re doing what we came to earth to accomplish. In my astrological opinion, the next two weeks will be your special time to engage in this exploration.

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FEB. 19-MARCH 20: For you Pisceans, March is Love

Yourself Bigger and Better and Bolder Month. To prepare you for this festival, I’m providing two inspirational quotes. 1) “If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren’t even giving to yourself.” — Barbara De Angelis 2) “Loving yourself does not mean being self-absorbed or narcissistic, or disregarding others.

Rather it means welcoming yourself as the most honored guest in your own heart, a guest worthy of respect, a lovable companion.” — Margo Anand

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

From Wheat Ridge High photographer to Disney supervisor

TRADITIONAL VIETNAMESE PHO HOUSE

Michael Talarico on ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’

by Michael J. Casey

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DISNEY

always wanted to be a cameraman,” Michael Talarico says over Zoom. “I was always into photography, and it was somewhere in my second year at [Colorado State University] that I ... thought: I really want to be a cameraman. How do I do that?”

Answering that question would drive his next 40 years. Talarico, who first started working with photography on the Wheat Ridge ON THE BILL: High School yearbook staff, was also a keen drawer — a ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ will be in skill that would serve him well once he transferred to the theaters and on University of California Los Angeles to study filmmaking.

Disney+ Premier “They were saying, ‘Well, filmmakers can’t draw,’” Access March 5.

Talarico recounts, “‘But the art department, they can draw.

So if you want to come, study animation.’”

Talarico graduated from UCLA in ’86 but left animation behind to work on commercials and films as a model maker — he’s credited in decades of Hollywood blockbusters. In 2013, Walt Disney Animation Studios came calling. They’d acquired a virtual effects company Talarico worked for and wanted him to join the studio.

“They said, ‘We’re trying to do an animated feature a year,’” Talarico remembers. “‘Would you be interested in coming back?’”

Naturally, and so Talarico joined Disney in the layout department.

“Layout was new to me, except for the fact that they were basically CGI cameramen,” Talarico says with a grin.

Frozen was Talarico’s first movie for Disney. Big Hero 6 followed in 2014, and Talarico graduated to layout finaling supervisor for Zootopia, Moana, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Frozen II and Disney’s latest animated feature, Raya and the Last Dragon.

Opening March 5 in theaters and on Disney+’s Premium Access service, Raya and the Last Dragon is a fantasy film steeped in Southeast Asian imagery. Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran) is a warrior guardian trying to unify a broken world with the help of a dragon, Sisu (Awkwafina). The vibrant colors in the film are striking, as is the photorealistic character movement — a challenge the Disney artist and technicians had to work through.

“We have a little bit more motion blur in it,” Talarico explains. “So, it’s closer to the reality of what happens in live-action.”

Motion blur is to CGI what squash and stretch is to hand-drawn animation: The illusion of natural movement.

“We knew there was going to be a lot of martial arts,” Talarico continues, “so early on, the directors and cinematographers decided that we were going to change the camera’s shutter ... so that the fights would look more realistic and not as staccato.”

As Talarico points out: “We’ve never gone that far on an animated feature.”

And if that wasn’t enough, they had to do it all from home. Talarico joined Raya in late 2019 and in March 2020 — well, you know what happened. And while the isolation was catnip for the artist, the lack of in-person collaboration made work much more difficult for supervisors like Talarico. Trying to move a character, or a piece of scenery, from one side of the frame to the other became a litany of directions.

“I mean, we’re talking about between 400 and up to 500 people, all working on the same project at home, spread out everywhere,” Talarico says. But, “People are just so driven at the studio to do great work. ... They just overcame it. Hats off to them.”

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BOULDER WEEKLY STAFF

Try this week: Porchetta Cuban @ Button Rock Bakery & Kenny Lou’s Deli

BUTTON ROCK BAKERY & KENNY LOU’S DELI. 400 W. South Boulder Road, Suite 2200, Lafayette, 303-926-1676, buttonrockbakery. com

KENNY LOU’S DELI at Button Rock Bakery in Lafayette knows how to make a sandwich. For evidence, look no further than the porchetta Cuban. Housemade porchetta — tender, roasted pork — is piled atop pork roll (kind of like fried bologna), bread and butter pickles, country Dijon mustard, all on an oversized, soft muffaletta roll. It’s a whopping sandwich, and it’s executed perfectly.

The salty, savory meats are in balance with the piquant mustard and tangy-sweet pickles. The roll holds all this goodness with no trouble.

In fact the only trouble you’ll have is deciding whether to follow your taste buds (and keep eating) or your stomach, which’ll be full a couple bites into the second half of the sandwich.

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1 Oyster Month returns

Good finds at the Farmers Markets

LAST YEAR, JAX FISH House & Oyster Bar nixed the High West Oyster Fest, a ridiculously fun in-person event celebrating the tasty mollusk, because of the pandemic. Instead, the restaurant held Oyster Month, with unique specials and giveaways that put the delicacy on display. This year, unfortunately, there will again be no Oyster Fest, but Oyster Month is back, with new and improved offerings. Oyster virgins — those who’ve never had an oyster — will get their first taste for free, plus a commemorative koozie. You can tag Jax on social media during your oyster activities and you’ll be entered to win oyster-shelled art. Eat a dozen oysters at Jax during Oyster Month and you’ll be entered to win free oysters for a year or an at-home oyster party. With a punch card, you’ll get a free half-dozen Emersum oysters for every five half-dozens you eat. There’s more, so head over to jaxfishhouse. com/oyster-month to learn more about the festivities.

BOULDER WEEKLY

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THE BOULDER COUNTY Farmers Markets (BCFM) transitioned to online ordering and curbside pickup last year during the pandemic, and decided to continue it into 2021 (in-person markets are scheduled to reopen in April).

This week, there are some unique finds from local producers. Altius Farms has some fresh pak choi, perfect for stir fries — the leaves are tender and flavorful like spinach. Aspen Moon Farm has some gorgeous rutabagas for sale. Croft Family Farms has some jumbo-sized, farm-fresh eggs, and Amaizing Corn Tamales has chicken, spicy pork and spinach varieties of tamales for sale. Check out more offerings and order at bcfm.org.

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COURTESY LEFT HAND

Brewing change

Longmont’s Left Hand Brewery passes milestone in MS research fundraising

by Matt Cortina

S

ome breweries make beer. connections.

Some make beer... and “Our first year we raised $18,000 change. with 25 riders here in Colorado,” says Team Left Hand, a group Chris Lennert, national captain of of employees and supporters Team Left Hand and the brewery’s of Longmont’s Left Hand Brewing, COO. “At that time, I knew one person recently announced it has now raised more COURTESY LEFT HAND than $5 million, and counting, in support of multiple sclerosis (MS) research. The total is the result of 14 years of coordinated fundraising and awereness-raising efforts from the brewery, its team, community members and business partners.

Since 2008, Team Left Hand has participated in Bike MS rides around the country, which raise funds for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and helps it fund research and support people living with MS and that had MS. Fast forward to 2021 and their families. The team participated in we now have eight teams with hunvirtual rides last year (because of the dreds of riders across the country, and pandemic, of course.)

I personally know more than 100 peoLeft Hand’s efforts — with eight ple that fight MS every day.” regional groups that participate in In 2019, Left Hand became a rides — not only help raise awarenational sponsor of Bike MS, and ness and funds for MS, but create the plan is to continue pushing the

brewery’s support further.

“I’ve shared a dream over the years: 10 teams and 1,000 riders raising more than $1 million a year, ultimately allowing people to lead better lives,” Lennert says.

If biking isn’t your bag, but you want to join Left Hand’s support for MS research, good news: the brewery makes Wheels Gose ’Round — a tart ale with raspberry, a twist of lemon and a hint of salt — with proceeds benefitting the National MS Society. If both beer and biking are your bag, then Wheels Gose ’Round makes for a refreshing finish to a long ride.

If you want to get involved, visit teamlefthand.com to find out how.

There are eight rides scheduled for 2021 across the country — you can ride virtually or in-person (there’s one in Colorado in June) with staggered start-times to ensure social distancing.

Drink this:

Left Hand’s latest releases

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n addition to all that good work, Left Hand is still cranking out good, interesting beer. The brewery recently dropped the St. Vrain Tripel and Found Fortune Double IPA. The Tripel makes its debut for the first time ever in cans as a year-round release — previous small-batch offerings available only in bombers were very well received for this Belgianstyle golden ale, loaded with fruit and spice.

The Found Fortune, meanwhile, is Left Hand’s first seasonal of the year.

It gets a heavy dose of El Dorado hops, which join Galaxy and Citra hop additions for a crunchy, flavor-busting brew.

Both are available now, Found Fortune only for the next several months.

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Cafeteria 2.0

BVSD opens Central Kitchen, maximized for scratch-cooking, working with local farmers and teaching students

by Matt Cortina

F

or years, the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) cooked its meals for students in one of three regional kitchens. Under the direction of Chef Ann Cooper, BVSD’s director of nutrition services, everything was made from scratch — gone, in 2009, were processed school-food staples like chicken nuggets and items loaded with high fructose corn syrup, trans fats and other unhealthy ingredients. But the kitchens were reaching capacity and the district was missing a valuable teaching opportunity.

So in 2014, Boulder voters approved a bond program that, among other projects, funded the construction of the $16.4-million Central Kitchen, which has additional storage for food, a café and a teaching kitchen.

Construction began in 2019, and now, it’s complete (although the pandemic put a stop to grandopening plans). The features within the 33,000-square-foot facility maximize the district’s ability to teach, work with local farmers, and cook healthy food.

“We believe that for a child to learn, think and be the best they can be, they have to eat well. That’s why we scratch cook,” says Cooper. “What that means is cooking with raw ingredients. It’s not individually wrapped, it’s not processed, it’s cooked from scratch, which means we know exactly what is going into the food.”

There are some unique features in the facility that utilize technology to ensure food safety and efficiency in the production process. For instance, there is a cook-chill system that includes a giant kettle connected to equipment that portions and seals large batches of food automatically, before the portions are moved to a chill tank to drop the temperature instantly. Such rapid movement and chilling of the food helps prevent the need for added preservatives.

Though other school districts around the country are building culinary production-education facilities like BVSD’s Central Kitchen, one thing that separates this local model from many others is how the design encourages collaboration with local farmers. For instance, though there’s a large bay door for trucks to make food deliveries, there’s also a delivery door designed to fit smaller trucks and vans from local farmers. There’s also enough storage in the facility to buy from local farms in bulk and keep food in cold storage — many local farms don’t have the capacity to store large amounts

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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of their crops. And there’s a dedicated produce washing room with special equipment designed for fruits and vegetables; the Central Kitchen will handle the duty of cleaning produce so farmers don’t have to.

While all these improvements bring BVSD to the cutting edge of school-food preparation, it was also just time to upgrade its facilities. After switching the food program to an all-scratch-food menu, the district’s food staff found it inefficient to move food from one of the three locations to another, hampered by the size of the individual kitchens. And staff was working out of retrofitted school cafeterias that weren’t designed for cooking from scratch.

But by consolidating the facilities into one, and adding in new technology, the Kitchen staff can crank out up to 17,000 meals per day and they can do it more efficiently and more cost-effectively.

What used to take three to four hours in the old system now takes as little as 45 minutes.

It’s a milestone moment in the district’s overall transition to healthy food, Cooper says.

“Twelve years ago we really thought into the future about what it would take to have the best food service operations that we could,” she says. “One of the things we said was that we should have a central production facility. It’s amazing to get to see its doors open after all of the hard work and generous support that made it a reality.”

You can enjoy the Kitchen even if you’re not a BVSD student: the café in the Kitchen will serve food to the public, there will be cooking classes, and there’s space for conferences and events.

MARCH 4, 2021

THE DESIGN of BVSD’s Central Kitchen encourages collaboration with local farmers, with smaller sized delivery doors, additional cold storage and a dedicated produce washing room.

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The omnibus stowaway

Buried deep in the stimulus bill, the “vape mail ban” is aimed at e-cigarette companies, but may also put the cannabis industry in its line of fire

by Will Brendza

A

mong the many provisions, amendments, compromises and acts strapped aboard the omnibus spending bill, buried down on page 5,136, is a provision aimed at the nicotine industry, but which will be felt well beyond its intended target.

The Preventing Online Sales of E-Cigarettes to Children Act (known colloquially as the “vape mail ban”) sounds non-controversial. But hasty drafting and exceedingly broad legal language could make it a barrier between cannabis businesses and their customers, and between patients and their medicine. That’s because while the bill itself only legally bans the shipment of vaporizer products through the U.S. Postal Service, both FedEx and UPS are also independently following suit, closing off all avenues of shipment for cannabis vaporizer companies.

And according to those in the industry, that stands to have a significant impact on business.

“In legal cannabis markets across the country, the vaping component of our industry drives billions of dollars in revenue and creates thousands of jobs,” says Dana Schoched, CEO of O2VAPE. “By sliding this lawchange into the back of the stimulus package ... it effectively destroys our ability to serve consumers with the safe and responsibly produced equipment we develop.”

The root of this legislative change goes back to the Jenkins Act of 1949, which was intended to regulate the

sale and taxation of cigarettes across the U.S. and to prevent “cigarette trafficking.” The new law redefines cigarettes under that old law to include “any electronic device that, through an aerosolized solution, delivers nicotine, flavor, or any other substance to the user inhaling from the device.”

That last bit (with the italic emphasis added) is bad news for many in the cannabis industry, according to Schoched. By that definition, cannabis vapes will suddenly, technically, become “cigarettes,” and cannabis companies that rely on shipping them might be faced with millions of dollars in lost revenue, added extra costs and a whole host of new rules regulating the shipment of products.

“The act forces shippers of vape products to comply with stringent new rules, including registering with the U.S. Attorney General and maintaining and reporting buyers’ addresses and quantities of products,” Schoched says. Any business that fails to comply with these new changes could be subject to severe penalties, including prison time.

Schoched is a U.S. Navy veteran who started O2VAPES in 2013. Though she’s concerned the collateral damage of this new legislation will outright ban her from shipping vape hardware to her customers directly, she also worries it could complicate commercial product exchange.

“The very broad language used in the bill may put a

stranglehold on commercial business-to-business shipments as well. Many products will disappear from store shelves,” Schoched forecasts. “Additionally, it will force consumers into a dangerous black market that should not exist.”

That last point is a notable one, in light of 2019’s outbreak of e-vaping-associated lung injury (EVALI).

Hundreds of people were hospitalized over several months after using black-market and/or cheaply made vaporizer products — some died. By outright banning vape companies from shipping legitimate, high-quality products to customers, Schoched says that some users will shift back to using untrustworthy and dangerous products.

However, the most unfortunate aspect of the vape mail ban, according to Schoched, is that it means medical patients who rely on vaporizers (or those who switched because it was a safer alternative to smoking flower), won’t be able to access their medicine as easily.

The language of the act is so broad that it bans shipment of THC, CBD and all of the other various cannabinoids people vaporize. They’re all technically “cigarettes” under this new legislation — and trafficking cigarettes is illegal.

“Sadly, this may just be the most dangerous legacy of this ill-considered act,” she says. “This law will choke the supply chain for the equipment that many of my fellow veterans and other medicinal cannabis patients around the country use to take their medication.”

The federal vape mail ban goes into effect on April 26 — although the private shipping companies are ceasing their deliveries of vape products even earlier.

FedEx stopped shipping vapes on March 1 and UPS will cease to do so on April 5. After April, cannabis vapes (or should we call them “cigarettes?”) will not be legal to put into the mail.

Schoched and other business owners like her are exploring alternative options for shipping, and trying to get the word out about this last-minute provision that was slipped aboard the omnibus spending bill. But unless Congress decides to reverse the decision in the next two months, the vape mail ban is likely riding the stimulus bill into law — and companies like Schoched’s O2VAPES will be left on the curb with no means of shipping its products.

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