Three months after shooting, Club Q owner announces plans for reopening
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Nearly three months after a shooter killed five people and injured dozens more at Club Q, an LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs, the club's owners have announced plans for reopening.
In an Instagram post on Monday, the bar’s owner, Matthew Haynes, said the club has partnered with women-owned architecture firm HB&A and the City of Colorado Springs to rebuild the space with a tribute to the five deceased victims. The five people killed in the shooting were: Raymond Green Vance, Ashley Paugh, Derrick Rump, Daniel Aston and Kelly Loving.
The rebuilt Club Q will also include enhanced security measures, Haynes said.
Haynes said club staff and architects hope to share more plans for the club’s redesign in the next four to six weeks and hope the enhanced security can be used for LGBTQ+ spaces across the country, as violence against the community has risen.
The existing building has not had its interior gutted yet, but Haynes expects that to happen by April 2023, with a full opening by fall 2023.
In addition to a permanent memorial honoring the deceased victims, Haynes hired two shooting victims as staff and plans to add at least one new role in the next month. The three new staff members will work on an administrative basis in rebuilding efforts.
“It was 20 years ago that I fought through a very different time in our country to ensure our community would have a safe space to gather and commune,” Haynes said in the post. “It has been two decades now that we have kept the doors open as a place where everyone, regardless of gender identity or who they love, had somewhere to belong.”
Club Q is one of Colorado Springs' two LGBTQ+ bars and has long been one of the few safe spaces for the queer community in a largely conservative city.
[Related: Colorado Springs reckons with past after Club Q shooting]
Anderson Lee Aldrich, a 22-year-old Colorado Springs resident, has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of bias-motivated crime, court documents show.
The Colorado Healing fund has provided funds for the victims and families of those killed. Good Judy Garage — a queer-owned Sheridan mechanic shop — also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for victims' medical bills, mental health support and other needs.
On Nov. 28, Club Q also created an internal GoFundMe managed by club staff with the goals of ensuring employees did not suffer financial hardship after the club's sudden closure, building a permanent vigil for the lives lost and rebuilding the club.
Alison Berg is a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach her at alisonberg@rmpbs.org.