A Colorado Open Records Act request to the Montezuma County Sheriff's Office requesting information on the investigation into the Hollywood Bar and Cafe fire 2½ years ago was granted recently.
The request was part of a series of requests by the Cortez Journal, Mancos Times and Dolores Star as part of an effort to keep public records open to the public. The request sent to the Montezuma County Sheriff's Office was done as part of Sunshine Week, March 13-19, which celebrates open government as good government.
The Star received the file on April 6. It includes 26 pages of incident reports filled out by investigating deputies after the Aug. 2, 2012, fire, which destroyed the Hollywood Bar and the Fusion Studios gallery next door. The historic bar was housed in a building built in 1900 out of stone blocks hauled from Taylor Mesa.
The file shed light on some previously unreleased facts about the investigation.
For example, the files show, 16 pieces of evidence was collected during the investigation, including burned debris, which was alerted to by an arson dog, brought in by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Also collected was a burned DVR recorder of surveillance videos at the Hollywood Bar and surveillance footage from the Giant Gas station.
It turns out that the evidence and multiple interviews all led to dead ends, which is why the Montezuma County Sheriff's Office closed the case seven months after the investigation was opened the night of Aug. 2.
The files indicate that the debris collected and sent to a CBI lab tested negative for accelerants.
A report filed in March of 2014, nearly two years after the fire, stated that the CBI found "no ignitable liquid in the debris samples sent for comparison."
"Analysis conducted ... did not identify the presence of an ignitable liquid. This does not preclude the possibility that an ignitable liquid was present at an earlier time," the CBI report states.
Then-Sheriff Dennis Spruell stated in a public meeting that gasoline may have been used; however, lab analysis did not detect gasoline, according to the CBI report, filed in March 2014.
Also collected was a DVR attached to a security system in the Hollywood, but the manufacturer, based in Denver, determined that the DVR was too damaged to retrieve information.
One of the first people interviewed after the fire was Travis Giddings, owner and manager of the bar. He told deputies that everything seemed to be normal when he left the bar at 7 p.m. on Aug. 2.
"According to Giddings, the business was doing better than it ever had, and he advised there were not any financial issues," the sheriff's report stated.
Giddings did mention an earlier disagreement with a patron who wanted to bring a therapy dog into the bar. When a deputy contacted that patron, he said that there were no hard feelings and that Giddings had actually bought a beer for the dog owner.
"There were no hard feelings, and Giddings had even bought him a beer to apologize," the report said.
The dog owner's roommate said, "Everything seemed fine ... and he returned to their residence and never left (the night of the fire)," the report stated.
Deputies also interviewed an employee, who said she closed the bar early at about 11 p.m. because business was slow. She stated that no one had been on the patio behind the Hollywood, where the fire originated, since about 9 p.m. "(The bartender) noticed nothing out of the ordinary while cleaning up and closing the bar," the report stated, but she did say that a patron was upset the evening before because he had been banned from the bar.
When deputies later contacted the banned patron, he said he was "slightly upset over being asked to leave but stated he just wanted to know why he was not allowed in the bar. It was later determined that the man was asleep on his mother's couch at 10:30 p.m. the night of the fire, according to a statement verified by his mother.
Another person told deputies that he was walking his dog about 10 p.m. and heard loud voices in the alley behind the Hollywood.
That person "advised he had heard the music stop at the Dolores River Brewery and figured it was people still wanting to drink and party."
A short time later, the dog walker smelled smoke and when he looked out his window, he saw the patio of the Hollywood consumed in smoke.
An insurance company contacted by investigators told them the Hollywood was insured for $546,000.
As the investigation continued into December, deputies were contacted by a woman who said she had recently been in contact with a man who bragged about setting the fire. But when deputies investigated the man further, it was determined that he was in jail on Aug. 2 and couldn't have set the fire.
A few juvenile suspects were also indicated in the file, but that information and resulting interviews was redacted because of the suspect's age.
In December, insurance companies paid claims of $45,063 to Speckled Trout Partners, of Sedona, Ariz., and $410,000 to the Hollywood's owners.
In a report filed Jan. 29, 2013, the case was classified as inactive, "until new evidence is disclosed or possible suspect information is developed. All current leads have been exhausted, and insurance companies have paid out to all involved parties."
Attempts to contact then-Sheriff Dennis Spruell were unsuccessful. Sheriff Steve Nowlin said the case is considered cold, but "cold cases can heat up."
"It's considered inactive until further information or leads are developed," Nowlin said.
However, the case is not closed. "It's not closed because it isn't solved. That concerns me, but who knows what will happen in the days to come. I'm hoping somebody will come forward with information. There are people out there that know what happened."
