Are the Denver Broncos Trying to Force a Gun Shop to Move Its Business?

It sure looks that way. The Broncos ownership, using a vaguely named LLC, has been buying up property along Denver’s Eighth Avenue, which Broncos general counsel Tim Aragon recently described as the “front door” to the city’s stadium district. According to the website BusinessDen, Aragon told attendees at a BusinessDen event held in March that, “some of the things that existed in those properties might not be things that we wanted,” and it appears a local gun shop may be one of those undesired businesses.

Alec Henkelman runs High Country Armory, and he got a new landlord back in January. Though BusinessDen reports that the Broncos “have yet to directly acknowledge any real estate transactions in the area”, the Denver Post’s story, published in conjunction with its partnership with BusinessDen, declares “Gun shop owner objects to bill increase after Broncos become his landlord.”

Henkelmen told BusinessDen that since the building was bought by new owners, his rent has increased by 20%, and he’s now looking to leave once his lease is up.

His monthly base rent is just under $2,600, and he had been paying about $1,000 in additional expenses. The “triple-net” lease he signed with the previous owner, which is common for commercial space, stipulates that he’s responsible for paying 20% of the building’s taxes, insurance and maintenance.

Now, Henkelman is being asked to pay an additional $700 for those items. That adds up to an extra $8,000 over the year, which he refuses to pay.

“I try not to cut hours, cut employees. I want to take care of my guys. But that’s what that could mean. That’s one dude’s weekly salary,” Henkelman said.

“If it’s the Broncos and we’re talking about eight grand on the year, why don’t we just ask Bo Nix to take an $8,000 cut?”

Heck, raise the price of a beer inside the stadium by a dime and the Broncos could more than cover that $8,000 expense. But if the Broncos don’t want a gun shop anywhere near the “front door” of the stadium, why would they do something like that?

It would be pretty on-brand for the Broncos to want to rid the neighborhood of Henkelman’s gun store. The NFL franchise has previous teamed up with the cities of Denver and Aurora to host a drive-thru “gun buyback” where gun owners could hand over their firearms to a group called RAWtools, which turns guns into garden tools.

The team also gave RAWtools $35,000 from its “Social Justice Fund”, according to the City of Denver’s website, and received ESPN’s Sports Humanitarian Award in 2022, in part for its support for the compensated confiscation program.

As far as I can tell, the Broncos haven’t repeated their gun “buyback” efforts since 2022, but if the team’s executives take issue with gun ownership or guns in general it wouldn’t be all that surprising if they’ve decided to make disfavored tenants like Henkelman pay more for the privilege of continuing to operate in their current locations. At the BusinessDen event in March, Aragon specifically referenced a marijuana grow operation located across the street from High Country Armory, but didn’t mention the gun store itself.

Regardless of the reason for his rent increase, Henkelman told BusinessDen he plans on “getting the **** out” of the building once his lease expires at the end of the year, and I don’t blame him one bit. I’ve never been much of a Broncos fan anyway, but after hearing about the gun store owner’s woes I’m rooting for them to go 0-16 next season.

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