Safety concerns prompt new regulations for Aurora cabarets, event centers

AURORA | The Aurora City Council on Monday approved a new ordinance to change its cabaret license to include open-room venues and private event spaces, after recent safety concerns and shifting entertainment trends.

“This will put the onus on them,” Councilmember Danielle Jurinksy, the bill sponsor, said during the meeting. “This will put the responsibility on them. They will need a trained bartender. They will be under the same rules as bars and restaurants with checking IDs and over-serving.”

For more than 40 years, Aurora has required cabaret licenses for liquor-licensed establishments that feature a dance floor, which include bars, breweries and hotel restaurants, said Treavor Vaughn, the city’s licensing manager, during the Monday study session. 

The current cabaret license doesn’t require private event spaces to obtain a liquor license or maintain the same safe alcohol serving practices as other establishments, and it also doesn’t allow for a standing-room-only environment like a music venue to obtain a license, which has become more of a staple in many modern concert venues, Vaughn said. 

Increasingly, the venues draw public safety concerns, city officials say.

In 2024 alone, Aurora documented four shootings, including one homicide, at so-called event centers, many operating outside liquor licensing rules. Of the 12 event centers expected to be impacted by the ordinance, six hosted events that should have had liquor licenses but didn’t, according to the city council packet.

The problems aren’t new. In 2021, a mass shooting at Mississippi and Peoria left one dead and five injured after 100 rounds were fired during an unregulated late-night event. That center was reportedly owned by a church and rented out to a group with “questionable ties,” Vaughn said. That same year, five people were shot in a separate event on East Colfax.

The events are essentially underground nightclubs with no video surveillance, no crowd control, and no accountability, Vaughn said.

The proposed changes are two-part. First, to create a new open floor cabaret license for venues with more than 250 patrons, and second, to extend licensing requirements to private event centers that allow liquor consumption and dancing without having a liquor license.

Vaughn and Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky said that a large venue in Aurora recently expressed interest in this type of setup, prompting the city to consider a new “open floor” cabaret license class.

“It’s a common type of license that a lot of jurisdictions have to address the higher intensity uses that come with late-night entertainment, particularly when they’re connected to alcohol,” Vaughn said.

Jurinsky said that as they were looking into the changes, she and Vaughn decided they could solve another issue they’ve noticed by adding private event spaces to the change. One of the more urgent reasons for the ordinance stems from the city’s growing frustration with private event centers, which rent out space for parties and events but aren’t required to hold a liquor license.

“A number of these have had illegal events,” Vaughn said. 

The city has been seeing birthday parties that are concerts with door charges, security and no oversight, he said

The new ordinance will now permit venues with standing-room-only setups to apply for an open-floor cabaret license, and require private event spaces to do the same. 

Venues would need to obtain Fire Department approval for their crowd management plans to prevent so-called “crowd crush” incidents, which occur when large, unmaintained crowds cause people to get trampled. The 250-person threshold is based on National Fire Code standards, which also trigger requirements for crowd control planning and management, Vaughn said.

Under the proposed ordinance, event centers where alcohol is consumed and dancing occurs would now be required to obtain a cabaret license, even if they don’t hold a liquor license. 

The ordinance establishes a new Open-Floor Cabaret license class for businesses with a capacity of over 250 persons that intend to operate with a standing-room-only environment. 

This will require a fire department-approved crowd control plan and prohibits the service of glass bottles, bottle buckets or bottle service unless patrons are provided with a table and seating, the packet said. 

Vaughn said that one main reason they would prohibit glass bottles is that they can be used as projectiles.

VIP bottle service will be limited to 750ml distilled spirit bottles and restricted to parties of at least three patrons. Additionally, it requires the establishments to keep 14 days of video surveillance available to police enforcement, with one reason being that the homicide that happened last year was made more challenging for police officers because there was no surveillance, Vaughn said. 

Event centers without a liquor license will now be subject to the cabaret license requirement if they permit alcohol consumption and feature a dance floor, similar to establishments with a liquor license. The license will also ensure accountability for managing noise and other negative impacts on surrounding neighborhoods. The license will also be required for establishments to either use liquor-licensed caterers or develop a liquor control plan for events serving alcohol after 10 p.m., even if those events do not otherwise require a liquor permit, according to the packet. 

Essentially, it will ensure that event hosts are of “good moral character,” meaning they can pass a background check similar to that required for liquor license holders, and it will encourage the hiring of state-licensed liquor caterers to manage alcohol service.

Jurinsky said that the people who own the event centers and apply for the cabaret license will now be held to the same standards as establishments with a liquor license, which include providing proof of lease or property ownership, undergoing a background check and demonstrating good financial standing. 

“It is a pretty scrutinous process to apply for a liquor license,” Jurinsky said. “One thing that this will do is like, you know, this will end people renting out these event spaces, and the event center owners saying, ‘Well, here’s the keys. Have a great day,’ and they just take off.”

The city also plans to exempt municipal facilities and permitted special events that already fall under regulated liquor service, focusing enforcement on full-time, for-rent, private venues.

State legislators created a new caterer’s liquor license in 2023, but it hasn’t been funded or finalized, Vaughn said. The city expects that to be addressed in the upcoming legislative session. In the meantime, event centers will be expected to create improved alcohol service plans for late-night events.

The ordinance was fast-tracked from the study session on Monday to the city council meeting. An amendment was added that will require businesses to maintain either liquor liability insurance or general liability insurance with a liquor liability endorsement.

The limits of coverage will be determined by the finance director and added to the second reading of the ordinance in a future city council meeting. The amendment was proposed by the city attorney and added to Sections 6 and 7 of the ordinance to ensure financial responsibility and protection.

Councilmembers Alison Coombe and Crystal Murillo were opposed to the ordinance, which Coombs said she did not object to the insurance requirement itself, but to the process of amending the ordinance on the floor without prior public review of the entire bill’s language.