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Volume 6 Issue 16
"Growing with d growing community."
January 25, 1984
$10 Million Loan Considered
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Beer Returns To Mercantile
Fourteen Month Dry Spell Ends
d Plan for New Classroo:rns Propose by Carson Reed
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Editor, The Metropolitan
by Susan Skorupa Reporter, The Metropolitan
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After 14 dry months, Auraria's Mercantile is getting ready to "set 'em up" again. Gary McManus, director of the Auraria Student Center said the City and County of Denver approved the Merc's application for 3.2 beer on December 30, and, having passed ~tate inspection, the restaurant will begin serving Coors, Coors Lite, Budweiser, and Michelob on January ~O. - "Trangen, Inc. owns the beer license," McManus said. "Initially, AHEC tried to apply for it, but the occupant must get the license, not the landlord.''. John Scaramella, president of Trangen, which leases the Mere from AHEC, said the company had no problems getting the license. "It was just an element of time processing the paper work," he said. Scaramella said there are no : plans to present live entertainment or to make any major changes at the Mere. "We've just gotten the license," he said. "Exactly where we're going has not yet been determined." The reopening of the basement bar will, however, add a few new items to the restaurant's cafeteriastyle menu. Manager Bill Edgar said the Mere will offer "munchie plates" for $1.25 after ·.4 p.m. consisting of tacos, nachos, french bread pizza and other snack food. The four selections .of draught beer will sell for 75 cents per 16-oz. glass. . Beer will be served from 10:30 a.m . -10:3'0 p.m., MondayThursday, and until 7 p.m. on Fri-
day. Scaramella said he didn't expect the sale of beer to draw a different clientele to the Mere. "The place is (already) 100 percent student orjented," he ~aid. "We expect to attract the same element as upstairs in the cafeteria." The Mere has been "dry" since last November, when the Auraria Mercantile Company, which then held the lease on the restaurant, allowed the beer license to expire. In March, 1983, the company sold its interest in the Mere to AHEC, which holds the lease. Professional Food Management operated the restaurant until August 1, when it "!'as taken over by Trangen. O
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· The dead bird that laid the golden egg? · No one will ever knew for sure, but a dead bird may have helped the Joint Budget Committee in their decision to recommend funding for an East Cla.sSroom replacement building. The Joint Budget Committee first caught wihd of the bird on the pages of the Denver Post, where it was mentioned in an editorial in favor of a new facility by Chuck Green. The bird had apparently been crucified between two panes of glass at the EC for a long, long time. According to AHEC Executive Director Jerry Wartgow, he-was urged by the JBC to put the dead bird problem to rest, once and for all. . The issue would have been buried right there if it hadn't been for the December Joint Budget Committee hearings on Higher Education. Director Wartgow felt it important to present the JBC with a fitting memorial to the long services rendered by the former tramway depot, and so immortali7.ed the symbolic Auraria Dead Bird forever between glass. "The hearings were very long and tirlng," said Wartgow, "and I was a little nervous about whether everyone had retained their sense of humor." But a laugh was apparently just what was needed for, not only did the ]BC approve of the AHEC request for $10 million-they have hung our new mascot in the offices of the ]BC, on the third floor of the capitol. D
RTD's New Head Pagl! 3
An Unlikely Union Page 4 \
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A proposal to borrow $10 million from the state to fund construction of a new building to replace the East Classrooms has been · initially approved by the state legislature's Joint Budget Committee. The proposal, which would allow AHEC to borrow the money against the sale of the East Classrooms, -was submitted by AHEC and approved by the CU Board of Regents in December . Accordi-ng to ·Lee Maurer, a legislative analyst for the JBC, the committee will be recommending to the legislature that the $10 million loan be granted. "The Joint Budget Committee recognized the need for a new building," Maurer said. The $10 million is approximately half of what it will cost to construct the new building, according to AHEC Executive Director Jerry W artgow. "We'll probably be back pitching for the other $10 million next year. In the meantime, of course, we'll be trying tt> sell the old buildings." W artgow said that construction might begin "realistically" by next January, and that the building probably won't be open for classes until the fall of 1986. Both W artgow and Maurer agreed that the current depression in Denver's real ·estate market could delay sale of the old facility. The JBC's support for a new classroom building comes after a long search by AHEC and the Regents for a lender. One proposal announced by AHEC last fall would have committed students to pay for any default on the facility through a special bond fee. However, that proposal, meant to insure against a fickle legislature, was denounced by_ the Trustees of the Consortium of State Colleges, and was subsequently dropp~ . D
A Bit of Jazz Page 6
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