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Comment by bogota | Hacker News Reader

I still live in denver but in the very outer burbs. I moved from market st about a year ago and it is so much better out here. Denver needs to gets its downtown under control. I used to love nightlife and going out to bars but after 2023 when places were all open again I never went out again as it didn’t feel safe after 9pm.

Really hoping they turn it around.

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This isn't a $XCityBad thing. It's happened to drunk crowds everywhere and is completely irrelevant to location or whether you're even downtown. I guarantee the two step bars in the burbs are filled with drunk drama too nowadays. I was in Austin, Tampa, Dallas, Houston and Denver over the last decade and go to a few of them yearly. Denver is far away the safest out of those and I'm glad to be here. I live in 5 points, which I'm sure you think is a big scary place.

I will happily trade seeing a person living in a tent and being able to go out and do an incredible amount of various things literally every single day without driving to living in the suburbs, but glad you like it. Cities are scary.

Can't walk home after 9pm.. lmao.

I'm more afraid of sitting at the airport nowadays than walking around downtown. That's where the real psychos are nowadays. Or hotel bars when traveling. Awful, rude impatient people who act like they've never left the house before. 2020 really did a number on peoples aggression/patience levels and industry people are taking the brunt of it.

Hell, if you look at the /r/boomersbeingfools subreddit it's all of the people living in the burbs being harassed by old angry grandparents constantly. I rarely see that crowd out here.

I live in one of the cities you mentioned. I think part of the problem is that many of the “fun” areas have become expensive and bring a different crowd, or people feel entitled to a certain experience because of the prices they’re paying.

The bars that still have $2-3 drinks (yes, these exist!) still have a wonderful, self-policing crowd. I also used to bartend in the same time range as you, at the equivalent of a 6th street bar.

The people who aren't from my neighborhood are absolutely the problem. Half of my neighbors are industry or just cool young people who go out all the time. I live in a gritty neighborhood that used to be the "Harlem of the West", not sure which city you're in but it'd be like Ybor (tampa), Deep Ellum (Dallas), I guess east6th austin but graffitti/hiphop not honkytonk vibes. Austin doesn't have a blues/jazz/hiphop neighborhood really and its unfortunate White Elephant or whatever is all they've got. Like you said, we get a lot of suburban tourists, groups of people who come in for their friday/sat night to the "cool" part of town and don't know how to handle their liquor or nowadays are just looking for drama, hate being asked for their drivers license (a law here to check for expireds) get in arguments with their partners, other people, try to fight the door guys.

Post 2020 is wild, I all but guarantee my local dive next door deals with a fight almost every fri-saturday. They definitely have to kick someone out every fri/sat at a minimum. Never used to be that bad. I can't explain how many people have tried to start something with me since 2021 (once bars opened) just going out and seeing shows and dancing and what not. If I go out to the busier areas after midnight it's almost a definite thing some dude(s) will go alpha bro mode over nothing or just stare people down. Last saturday a group a randoms at a table was enunciating loudly hoping I'd hear it that I don't belong at my own home bar. That I looked stupid and had stupid tattoos. Dudes had probably never walked into it before and were definitely not from my neighborhood. I just ignored them because who cares. Weird stuff like that. People are just weird now. I've seen so many people 86d.

We had a dollar beer night up till at least 2016-2018 in Austin off Guad at The Local but it looks like that closed down. I can't imagine dollar beers today. The $1 Coors Banquets they sold sell for I think $6.50ish here today. I'm paying $6-8 for single well (Concierge) vodka talls nowadays..

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