Speaker 1: We're gonna have a conversation with a woman you heard
Speaker 1: fairly recently.
Speaker 2: She is the owner of the Gleam Haunted car wash.
Speaker 1: It's not haunted all year long, It's only haunted for
Speaker 1: a couple of weekends in October. But she is being
Speaker 1: haunted right now by the prospect of a big car
Speaker 1: wash chain dropping in right down the street from her.
Speaker 1: Lots of private money, and I'm gonna explain where that
Speaker 1: private money is coming from in the car wash industry
Speaker 1: in just a minute.
Speaker 2: But this is creating a huge problem.
Speaker 1: So joining me again, Emily Barrada, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: Oh Mandy, thank you for having me back. This show
Speaker 3: is so fun. You are so good.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk for a second. I mean, how long
Speaker 1: have you owned your car washes? You have one on
Speaker 1: East Call Fax and one where's the other one? I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly where that is.
Speaker 3: So I've got the one on East Call Fax is
Speaker 3: two years old. The one in the Denver Highlands just
Speaker 3: turned nine. Okay, we have had a good, successful run.
Speaker 3: We have a great little car wash, two great little
Speaker 3: car washes.
Speaker 1: So what is happening now to reat in your existence.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean to be dramatic, but this actually
Speaker 1: is a threat to your existence.
Speaker 3: Actually, that's not being dramatic whatsoever. That's that's why I
Speaker 3: am here. So I was very surprised to hear that
Speaker 3: aroa planning commission and a wor city council seems poised
Speaker 3: to basically do nothing but facilitate the entrant of quick
Speaker 3: trips new bubble bath car wash less than half a
Speaker 3: mile from my brand new location. You know, I scraped
Speaker 3: together all my money, all my friend's money, money from
Speaker 3: people from church like we we invested millions of dollars
Speaker 3: in this blighted stretch along East Call Fax. We put
Speaker 3: in my second location blood sweat, tears, and it's it's
Speaker 3: been taken a while for it to stabilize, but we
Speaker 3: put out a great car. It was a conditional use,
Speaker 3: which is sort of a nerdy term. And I didn't
Speaker 3: think that city council or planning would let would let
Speaker 3: another competitor in that close because the big guys they
Speaker 3: use a ton of water, they use a ton of energy.
Speaker 3: It's a bad land use and they're we gonna put
Speaker 3: me out of business.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you said conditional use. What does
Speaker 1: that mean?
Speaker 3: So it basically gives city council the authority to say
Speaker 3: not this use, not here, not now. So city Council's job,
Speaker 3: as I understand it, in part, is to look at
Speaker 3: allocation of resources which belong to all of us, and say, okay,
Speaker 3: we do want water used for this purpose, we do
Speaker 3: want land used for this purpose, or we don't like
Speaker 3: this is not a good use of this land. This
Speaker 3: is not like we don't want to We don't want
Speaker 3: a car wash here right now, because in the last
Speaker 3: three years we have permitted fifteen brand new car washes
Speaker 3: in Aura alone, and it's enough. We just we don't
Speaker 3: want them that close. We don't want that many. We
Speaker 3: only have so much potal water. I don't know about you, Mandy,
Speaker 3: I my kids and I we started learning how to
Speaker 3: ski a couple of years ago. The snowpack is low,
Speaker 3: like drink up of water is a scarce resource. And
Speaker 3: we shouldn't be letting in big chains who are going
Speaker 3: to put little guys out of business. No more haunted tunnels.
Speaker 2: Well, and there's more than that.
Speaker 1: And this is kind of what I wanted to bring
Speaker 1: up because I find this fascinating. Now, I am not
Speaker 1: I'm not mad at people finding ways to use the
Speaker 1: tax code to their advantage. Right, as long as you
Speaker 1: are legally using the tax code and you're mitigate, I'm.
Speaker 2: All for that.
Speaker 1: However, people don't realize, and maybe they've noticed this in
Speaker 1: their communities, how many gas stations, car washes have popped
Speaker 1: up all over the area. And there's a big reason
Speaker 1: for it. Bonus depreciation is what we're gonna This is
Speaker 1: gonna go so nerdy and so hard. Just just bear
Speaker 1: with me, you guys. Bonus depreciation which allows businesses to
Speaker 1: depreciate or excuse me to, to mark off on their
Speaker 1: taxes a certain amount for business depreciation of equipment that
Speaker 1: they have purchased. And it's a reasonable thing to allow
Speaker 1: people to depreciate the cost of that equipment because they
Speaker 1: have to pay for it over time and it decreases.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of reasons for it, but it's not
Speaker 2: a dumb thing.
Speaker 1: So it was expanded under Trump's twenty seventeen tax over
Speaker 1: which temporarily allowed one hundred percent ride offs on qualifying assets.
Speaker 1: The perk began shrinking by twenty percentage points each year
Speaker 1: after twenty twenty two, meaning a ten million dollar and
Speaker 1: they use private jets. That's another thing right now, is
Speaker 1: private jets. A ten million dollar plane bought in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three could generate an eight million dollar deduction. Okay,
Speaker 1: because of the way this is written, So a car
Speaker 1: wash is one of those things that can actually give
Speaker 1: you that massive deduction because it is so equipment intensive,
Speaker 1: especially to open it up. So gas stations and car
Speaker 1: washes are incentivized. In what you have now is you
Speaker 1: have large hedge funds, you have venture capitalists, you have
Speaker 1: other ultra wealthy people who are investing in car washes,
Speaker 1: gas stations, and private planes as a means of writing
Speaker 1: things off on their taxes, which I'm not mad at
Speaker 1: them about. But why is Aroar letting it happen so
Speaker 1: close to an existing car wash?
Speaker 2: That's the question I'd like an answer to.
Speaker 3: I would love an answer to that too, And I
Speaker 3: would ask your listeners to call city Council three o
Speaker 3: three seven three nine seven oh one five, or they
Speaker 3: can go to Gleam car Wash backslash be smart and
Speaker 3: it'll give you all the links to your city council
Speaker 3: and your mayor and you can say, hey, Listen, we
Speaker 3: love our little local car wash, which incidentally where women owned,
Speaker 3: locally owned. We're the greenest car wash probably in the country,
Speaker 3: and twenty percent of my staff is neurodiverse. I'm guessing,
Speaker 3: do you guys know what that means.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it means that they may have some uh maybe
Speaker 1: they're on the autism spectrum, or they have a developmental
Speaker 1: delay that maybe would keep them from succeeding at a
Speaker 1: more high tech job.
Speaker 3: Well, and I mean I have had people on the
Speaker 3: spectrum start here and be non verbal, and after like
Speaker 3: six or twelve months, they're on a team. They're treated
Speaker 3: with respect, they're paid according to like their skill set.
Speaker 3: Along with everybody else. They boss me around. We have
Speaker 3: seen lives and I'm not joking. We we have transformed lives.
Speaker 3: And we do this voluntarily. We don't get any tax breaks.
Speaker 3: We just we started doing this. A friend of mine
Speaker 3: runs a big nonprofit that only employs people on the spectrum,
Speaker 3: and we found a place for them here. And so
Speaker 3: not only well, not only will they put me out
Speaker 3: of business by allowing Quick Trip to put in their
Speaker 3: their bubble bath car wash, which will be another poorly
Speaker 3: run water guzzling car wash, but they're potentially going to
Speaker 3: put both my businesses out of out of business. That's
Speaker 3: fifty jobs. Twenty percent go to people on the autism
Speaker 3: spectrum or horror neurodiverse. We have, we have, We give
Speaker 3: back in every way that we possibly can. It seems
Speaker 3: like we are the sort of business that city council
Speaker 3: and elected representatives should go out of their way to
Speaker 3: help thrive, not just sit idly by while while while
Speaker 3: we gasp for air and die, especially after investing all
Speaker 3: this time, all this money, all this space and trying
Speaker 3: to help ease coal facts.
Speaker 1: Is this is this car wash attached to a Quick
Speaker 1: Trip or is it a standalone My.
Speaker 3: I understand is that it is. Oh it's owned by
Speaker 3: Quick Trip, and I'd be immediately adjacent.
Speaker 2: So like you go, you.
Speaker 3: Get gas, you get a discount on a car wash.
Speaker 3: You never even have to leave their site, so.
Speaker 1: You essentially they could approve the Quick Trip and not
Speaker 1: approve the bubble thing.
Speaker 3: The Quick Trip convenience store and fueling station is already built. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 3: being fine, they don't need this car wash. They just
Speaker 3: they just want a car wash, So yeah.
Speaker 2: They can all the tax right off. Let's be real.
Speaker 1: We just went over why the car washes are so
Speaker 1: valuable for the companies that want to open them. And again,
Speaker 1: I'm not mad at the companies for wanting to do this,
Speaker 1: but if you're going to come in, is there any
Speaker 1: mechanism that you're aware of, because it seems to me
Speaker 1: that a planning commission should be around to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we should do this a little further away.
Speaker 3: Yes, And in fact, a lot of planning commissions and
Speaker 3: city councils are doing this. Lakewood just did this. Boulder
Speaker 3: has a version of this. This is happening in Texas.
Speaker 3: This is not This is not a weird idea that
Speaker 3: there are certain types of businesses that should be spaced
Speaker 3: far enough apart for the betterment of all of us.
Speaker 3: Whether it is whether it's exhaust fumes, whether it's water use,
Speaker 3: whether it's anti competitive and anti free market like, the
Speaker 3: people are moving in this space to recognize that this
Speaker 3: isn't fair and this isn't right right, and city council
Speaker 3: has this is a conditional use. Quick Trip does not
Speaker 3: have a use by right to put a car wash
Speaker 3: on that land they have. They need permission, and a
Speaker 3: city council needs all it up and say we're sorry,
Speaker 3: but not right now, just not right now.
Speaker 1: I you know, I live in an area of Douglas
Speaker 1: County where there's it's a running joke on next door
Speaker 1: whenever there's something breaks ground, it's like, oh, what kind
Speaker 1: of car wash are we getting there? It's it's insane.
Speaker 1: So now that I know the motive behind it, I'm
Speaker 1: I am. I understand it. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's like, let's be smart about this. If you want,
Speaker 1: if quick trip wants to open a place, you know
Speaker 1: a couple of miles away, knock yourself out. But let's
Speaker 1: not put someone out of busy is an independent operator,
Speaker 1: because you're not going to be able to compete on price.
Speaker 2: I'm guessing I can't compete on price.
Speaker 3: And these guys, as you mentioned earlier, these are ultra
Speaker 3: wealthy organizations or people. I am not ultra wealthy. I
Speaker 3: have one little car wash in Denver, and I opened
Speaker 3: a second car wash, and we scraped together the money
Speaker 3: for a very significant investment where no one had put
Speaker 3: private dollars in that stretch of these collfacs between Chambers
Speaker 3: and airport in a long long time. And I did that,
Speaker 3: and I took a chance, and now I'm wondering if
Speaker 3: if I should regret that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hate to think that you would be regretting that.
Speaker 2: But here we are.
Speaker 1: So what exactly you're asking people to call city council?
Speaker 1: What are the next steps? Can this be stopped?
Speaker 3: It can't. City council needs, in my opinion, to do
Speaker 3: with their job. So call city councilor go to glean
Speaker 3: car wash backslash be smart. Council needs to call up
Speaker 3: the decision that the Planning Commission made because Planning said,
Speaker 3: oh okay, fine, we don't care like put another CA
Speaker 3: wash in half a mile from a brand new, locally
Speaker 3: owned car wash for it. City Council needs to call
Speaker 3: up that decision and approve the call up. And then
Speaker 3: the council needs to say we have changed and they've
Speaker 3: done this in the past. This is not novel. Just
Speaker 3: doesn't happen all the time. They need to say, nope,
Speaker 3: you know what, We're going to reverse Planning Commission's decision.
Speaker 3: This is not something that we want right now, So
Speaker 3: this conditional use is denied and that's that all right.
Speaker 1: I would urge people, I hope have you reached out
Speaker 1: directly to any members of the city council.
Speaker 3: I have and I do have some sympathetic ears. I
Speaker 3: also didn't hear anything back from some of them either,
Speaker 3: So I mean call council, like, yeah, and you vote,
Speaker 3: and you want local businesses that give back to survive,
Speaker 3: speaking don't want flight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of survive, you can go to glean this
Speaker 1: weekend and maybe yes, maybe die or fright, that's what
Speaker 1: she's she.
Speaker 2: Needs her help with. Call city council. But then she's
Speaker 2: gonna scare you to death. This is gonna a death, Emily,
Speaker 2: what else? What else?
Speaker 1: To go ahead and tell people a little bit again,
Speaker 1: remind him about the haunted car wash this weekend.
Speaker 3: We've got two haunted car washes and actually we decided
Speaker 3: to do Thursday, which is the day before Thanksgiving. So
Speaker 3: we have one day left Halloween for Halloween. One yes,
Speaker 3: one day left, seven to nine, nine thirty. If we've
Speaker 3: got a line, which we have had the last two nights,
Speaker 3: and we want to give a shout out to a rod.
Speaker 3: He came to our first car wash out in Roy.
Speaker 3: He came for two hours. He was dressed up as
Speaker 3: a scary clown. He was amazing. It was super duper fun.
Speaker 3: So Yeah, everybody come out seven to nine both locations
Speaker 3: this Thursday last night.
Speaker 1: Only you know what I'm just gonna say, Emily, Perhaps
Speaker 1: maybe somebody unscary could be there with a petition for
Speaker 1: city council.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, utilize great people that are going to be in
Speaker 1: line and ask them to support your car wash.
Speaker 2: I'm just throwing that out there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or maybe make one of the scary things in the
Speaker 1: car wash big government.
Speaker 2: So there you go, Emily Veron. I appreciate your time
Speaker 2: today so much.
Speaker 3: All right, Minni Connell, thank you for having me on
Speaker 3: your show, not once but twice and lending me a rod.
Speaker 3: And I hope I get to do this again.
Speaker 1: I hope so too. Emily, thanks so much. We'll talk
Speaker 1: to you, talk to you again soon.
Speaker 2: All right, thank you, thank you,