Tom Zaidan wants to open a venue called Beta X at 1909 Blake St. in downtown Denver.
And his attorneys stress that, despite the name, it will be much different from the Beta Nightclub, which previously occupied the building but was shut down by Denver years ago.
“They were a nightclub. This is a cultural venue,” said attorney Tom Downey of Ireland Stapleton.
“The idea is to have DJs and live bands be the focus, and (Zaidan is) very excited because he has a lot of connections to be able to bring in artists from all over the world,” Downey’s colleague Lidiana Rios added.
But Zaidan and his plans for Beta X have hit an early snag in the form of neighbors wary of endorsing its liquor license.
Downey believes the concerns are due in part to the ghost of “old bad Beta.” But a board member of the local neighborhood association says the group is very much thinking about the present.
“Tom said that he was going to earn trust of the neighborhood, but he really hasn’t done it,” said Don Ku of the Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association, referring to Zaidan.
The problem with Beta X arose in late January, when Zaidan and his attorneys thought they and LoDoNa had reached a good-neighbor agreement, which is designed to address potential issues regarding things like noise or traffic.
But on the morning of a Jan. 28 liquor license hearing, a “bombshell” was dropped, Downey told a city hearing officer. LoDoNa’s board had voted against the good-neighbor agreement the night before.
“We thought we had an agreement. We had the back and forth and it was only supposed to be ratified by the board,” Downey told a Microsoft Teams room of more than 20 people. “And that didn’t happen — an incredible rarity.”
Reached by BusinessDen after the hearing, Downey theorized that the rejection stemmed from the checkered history at the 10,000-square-foot, multilevel space.
Beta, opened by Brad Roulier and Mike McCray in 2008, became an internationally acclaimed hot spot for electronic dance music in the 2010s. But after new owner Valentes Corleons, a self-described “made man” in the Sicilian Mafia whose real name is Hussam Kayali, took over in 2019, the club began a steep decline.
Under Corleons, who also owned and operated Cabin Tap House where Zaidan’s Sky Lounge sits today, Beta saw gang violence, drug use and security violations, according to the city. Denver’s Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection, then known as Excise and Licensing, shut down Beta for good in early 2022.
Earlier, on New Year’s Day that same year, a shooting outside Cabin Tap House killed two people, leading to that venue closing as well.
“The old Beta had problems, and even when Tom was talking through what to name this thing, we were worried that people were going to associate it with old Beta,” Downey said. “If Tom had a relationship with the old Beta, we would have not taken him on as a client.”
Rios and Downey declined to make Zaidan available for an interview.
Ku, the LoDoNa board member, said the group’s failure to strike a deal with Zaidan doesn’t revolve around the former Beta, but rather the club he operates next door.
“The neighborhood is concerned based on the history that Tom has shown at Sky Lounge,” Ku said.
Zaidan opened Sky Lounge in 2024. At a liquor license hearing in May of that year, he said the spot would be “very regular” and “more like a sports bar,” according to Westword.
But he and Sky Lounge were cited by the city last year for allowing patrons to dance and smoke inside using a hookah without the proper license, records show. Unlicensed security guards were also working at the spot, according to the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection.
And the biggest problem was on March 8 last year, when two people were stabbed at the club. One of them was an employee, records show.
“Security footage obtained of the incident shows the first victim … and the suspect appear to throw gang signs at each other before the fight began,” a licensing department report states.
Zaidan settled with the city in the summer and was able to keep Sky Lounge open after closing for 21 nonconsecutive days between late July and September. He also agreed to shut down the business for six straight months if he violated city rules within a year of the settlement.
When asked about the incident, Rios said Zaidan learned his lesson.
“Yes, he had an issue. He notified police, they addressed it, they entered into stipulations with the city, he admitted what had happened and nothing has happened since,” she said. “He learned from that action, it hasn’t happened again and these are the steps that we’ll take to avoid it at the next place.”
But the LoDoNA board isn’t as convinced.
“Why would the neighborhood agree to that again in the future?” Ku asked. “And then add the speckled history of Beta on top of it.”
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