Colorado Springs lounge ups age limit after deadly weekend shooting
After a shooting in the parking lot over the weekend that left one dead and two others injured, the Luxe Daiquiri Lounge in Colorado Springs is raising its age limit to 30 plus.
“The events from this weekend help us make that decision,” said lounge owner Latrina Ollie.
The lounge was the scene of a shooting that killed Jahiddi Williams, 22 on March 30. According to Ollie, one of the other people shot in the incident was a security guard for the lounge.
She said that the shooting combined with a desire to return to a “small, familiar crowd” with a higher concentration of regulars prompted the change.
Opened in 2023, Luxe was the previous location of another 30-plus club called Old School Tavern, said Ollie. She said the change makes Luxe the only current 30-plus club in Colorado Springs.
In addition to raising the age limit, the lounge is also doing away with outside promoters, instead planning to organize and promote special events in-house.
Ollie said that in the past year of operations the lounge has had a series of promoter events that attracted a crowd that did not fit the intended mature style of the venue.
Luxe is also changing its third-party security company to contract different guards, adding more cameras and developing a better plan for future incidents. Ollie said that with apartments next door to the lounge’s Galley Road location, safety was her biggest priority.
“My whole thing is safety,” she said. “No one should walk outside their house and hear gunshots.”
The social media reactions to the change have been generally positive, with one Facebook commenter saying they were “excited” for the update to the venue’s music and atmosphere.
“I don’t see myself going back,” Ollie said of the age-limit decision.
Luxe is not the only club in Colorado Springs to have been affected by violence. The New Havana Bar and Grill closed after multiple nearby shootings, including one that killed Glenn Fruster, 37 on August 19, 2022.
The Paradise Nightclub and Restaurant on Platte Avenue faced objections to the renewal of its liquor license in 2022 after a another string of shootings, eventually closing.
