Broadway Boutique Owner Calls for City Action After Scary Break-In

Adrienne Scott-Trask has been running Electric Dream's physical location for just over a year, but operating a small business in Denver feels more like a nightmare sometimes, she says.

The clothing boutique at 101 Broadway was broken into on Friday, March 1, at around 3 p.m. by a man who smashed the door in with a metal bar and "verbally accosted” one of Electric Dream's workers, according to the Denver Police Department, leaving the employee with lacerations on her shoulders from the shattered glass.

A probable-cause statement from DPD names 41-year-old Brian Bouwens as the person arrested in the incident. According to the statement, Bouwens would not leave the store premises permanently despite an employee repeatedly asking him to do so. Even though he left a few times, Bouwens kept returning, prompting the employee to grab a pair of scissors because she feared for her physical safety.

“The Defendant returned to the location bearing a yellow metal pole, approximately five feet in length, and began striking the double-paned laminate windowed front door,” the statement reads. “The Defendant began breaking through the front door, causing the victim to fear the Defendant's intentions were to break through the front door to assault her. The Defendant momentarily walked away but returned still bearing the metal pole, again striking at the door.”

Bouwens was taken into custody for burglary and damaging the business’s door, according to the document, though no stolen items were reported.

Scott-Trask moved to Denver from Toronto twelve years ago and opened Electric Dream inside her baby-pink truck, Beatrice, eight years ago. She opened the store’s first physical location last January in hopes of being more welcomed by the city, but she says that hasn't been the case.

“There's literally no one you can turn to,” Scott-Trask says. “You call out to the non-emergency numbers, and they don't really take you seriously. They don't really show up. I reached out to my landlord; they don't really care. … You reach out to your city council rep, and they do try, they mean well, but nothing actually happens. There's just a lot of talk with no actual solution or game plan.”

The need for a solution became essential to her after the break-in, however.

Scott-Trask says she is still figuring out how much the damage will cost to repair after being told she must replace the entire door rather than just the pane of glass; she's already lost half a day of business because she had to close the store after the incident to complete an extensive cleanup.

“There was glass all the way to the back of our store, which is an 1,100-square-foot space,” she says. “It was everywhere.”

This is the first time there’s been a physical assault on her store, but Scott-Trask says struggles with vagrants are nothing new. People often use the alcove of Electric Dream’s door to create shelters from the weather. The shop’s windows have been keyed, and her staff has had to clean up everything from exploded burritos to blood clots, she adds.

“We've seen a lot more even since all the shelter options have become available for the unhoused situation that's going on,” Scott-Trask says. “I kind of thought that maybe that would resolve a little bit, or at least alleviate it, and I’d say the last few weeks alone have probably been even worse.”

According to the DPD’s public crime map, in the Baker neighborhood, where Electric Dream is located, there have been thirty instances of public disorder, 29 reports of larceny, 22 incidents related to drugs and alcohol, and thirteen burglaries so far this year.

Mayor Mike Johnston has made ending homelessness one of his top priorities since taking office last year, sheltering 1,000 people before the end of 2023 and building micro-communities designed as temporary, transitional housing. A potential site for a micro-community in Baker, at 950 West Alameda Avenue, is still under consideration, according to the Denver Department of Housing Stability.

Scott-Trask says she knows there is no quick, easy solution, but she thinks the city needs to do more for local businesses dealing with the effects of homelessness, particularly in denser areas such as her stretch of Broadway. She says the break-in is an example of gaps in the system, as the man who allegedly damaged and burglarized her store won’t be able to help pay for repairs.

“Now I have to go through my insurance, but my insurance has a deductible that probably isn't going to cover it, so it's coming out of my pocket,” she says. “So I pay all these taxes to put all these systems to help these people, but at the end of the day these people are creating this damage and I'm still the one who's going to have to pay out of pocket for it.”

Her suggestion is for the city to explore financial grants for small, local businesses that experience property damage, to help cover the gap between what insurance covers and a business’s actual cost.

“I don't think small businesses should be left out to dry because of the lack of proper systems in place to actually solve what's going on right now,” she argues. “We can pretend it’s all peachy, but, no, there's a lot of issues going on, and they really need to be addressed.”