LoDo Bars Step Up Security After 4 Injured At Nightclub

DENVER (CBS4) - Four people were injured after a brawl inside a LoDo bar and now downtown bars are stepping up security.

The fight happened early Saturday morning at 14th and Market Street. The victims were either stabbed or cut by broken bottles. The injuries are said not to be serious and police are doing their part to make sure it doesn't happen again.

The police have been trying to keep a lid on the Friday night fights. Bar employees say every Friday at 11 p.m. police block traffic from driving on Market, but fights keep happening and this one was apparently the worst of the summer.

Cellphone video captured the crowd following the bar brawl. Blood stains were visible outside the Mynt Mojito Lounge on Market. The owner said a shot glass was thrown and beer bottles were smashed during the brawl inside his bar.

"Two guys came out holding t-shirts on their sides and one guy came out holding a t-shirt on his face," LoDo bar employee Roman Rojas said. "All of them were covered in blood."

"She was just gushing blood out of her foot and her boyfriend was carrying her," bar employee Siavash Zadeh said.

That was after up to eight people were hustled out of a side door, but it wasn't over. The fighting spilled out onto the street.

"The police officers came and tried to restrain the fight … there was like three of them and the guy was still on top of the other guy holding him down," Rojas said.

Mynt's owner said he'll be beefing up security and enforcing a dress code.

"We do have a mild dress code," said Brad Beale, owner of Spill, the bar next door to Mynt.

Beale says preventing a fight begins with keeping drunks out. He also claims other bars are allowing a dangerous element to get out of control.

"Every Friday for the last seven weeks in a row … brawls," Beale said.

Police have stepped up their presence.

"One week they had six mounted police in the middle of the street," Beale said.

Beale said the midnight brawls have been bad for business.

"It's killing our business, we're down 50 percent."

"We work here, we try to help people have a good time and then they come out and ruin other people's good times, basically," Zadeh said.

On Thursday the bar owners and the LoDo Neighborhood Association plan to be meet with police. They want to come up with a plan to end the Friday night fights.