Besides the state imposed teen driver curfew, Denver city officials imposed a general curfew for teens in public at night. This is called the SafeNight Curfew Program that forbids teens between the age of 10 and 17 years old from being in public spaces between the hours of 11pm-5am Sunday through Thursday and 12am-5am Friday and Saturday. Some surrounding cities such as Aurora, Boulder, Centennial, Lakewood and Littleton also have teen curfew ordinances. Even though most teen crimes happen during the day, after school hours, many teen crimes do happen at night and teens are much more likely to get hurt by a third party during these hours as well. So the law was made to protect teens from getting into trouble and also to prevent assaults, abductions and other threats. There are a few exceptions to this law such as:
Denver also recently had a temporary curfew to stop the spread of the coronavirus which imposed a 10pm curfew for all residents unless at work or travelling for essential activities, and it was from November 8,2020 to December 7, 2020.
There are no curfews in place for Colorado Springs adults at the time of writing, but teen drivers with less than one year of driving experience in Colorado Springs are still subject to the curfew laws stated above. There was previously a nighttime curfew enacted by the local government to keep residents safe and avoid violence during the George Floyd protests that took place. This curfew banned individuals from public places within Colorado Springs from 10pm-5am beginning on June 3, 2020 and ending on June 8, 2020.
The Denver SafeNight program doesn’t have any major penalties for teens being caught in public places during the curfew, however they could be given a citation. Most cases though, the teen is offered a diversion program that is designed to enroll the teens in extracurricular activities and keep them safe. Most teens get the diversion program and almost all of them complete it successfully and don’t pay any fines or have anything on their record from it.
Teen drivers caught driving past curfew hours will be met with a citation, a fine up to $50, 2 points on their license and 8-24 hours of community service that is mandatory. If the teen is caught a second time, the fine increases to up to $150 and mandatory community service hours go up to the range of 16-40 hours.
Curfews imposed during the pandemic and protests come with hefty fines of up to $2,500 and jail time of up to 189 days or a combination of the two, but most penalties are much lower than these limits and penalties are based off of the severity of the incident and other circumstances to be determined by the judge.