Did You Know There’s A Greeley, Colorado, Smell Hotline?
While some call the smell in Greeley, Colorado, is "the smell of money," it's still a pretty strong odor, and at times, it's pretty unbearable.
Did you know that it gets so bad at times that they created an "odor hotline"?
We didn't even know it was a thing.
Greeley, Colorado, Odor Hotline Is A Real Thing
I've lived in Colorado my entire life, but I've mostly lived closer to the Denver Metro. Until I moved to Northern Colorado for my first full-time radio gig, I had hardly ever been to Loveland or Fort Collins, and until my first trip to the Greeley Stampede in the early 2000s, I had never been to Greeley.
Some would consider it a famous Colorado city for many reasons. Be it the fact that the Denver Broncos trained there back in the day, or the Greeley Stampede's amazing line-ups over the years ... it's not all good things that G-town is known for.
Does Greeley, Colorado, Smell?
The smell of Greeley is one thing that comes up quite frequently from visitors or even those who live there daily. I was at a college walk-through last week, and UNC and some doofus dad brought up the smell in a Q&A to try and be funny. Nobody laughed, by the way. Don't be that guy...
It's "the smell of money" is what my friend John told me one of their unofficial mottos was years back.
The "smell" people refer to is mainly from the meat packing and livestock in and around Greeley, but the city has tried hard to "clean up the smell," if you will.
One thing that was implemented is an "odor hotline" that you can call if the smell is just too overwhelming. We didn't know this was even a thing, did you?
What's the Greeley Odor And Smell Hotline?
The Greeley Odor Hotline can be reached at 970-350-9831 and is manned Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Regarding the hotline, the city's code compliance page says:
Odor Hotline
Call 970-350-9831 between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Please leave your name, address, and phone number, as well as the location where you detected the odor, if different from your address, a description of the odor and its intensity, along with the direction the wind was blowing.
If you plan to call the hotline, have the information above ready so that they can better assist you.
What exactly they can do with the information and complaints is a head-scratcher as you can't fix the wind, but it sounds like they can and have adjusted the meat packing hours to lessen the smell in recent years.
We love our friends, listeners, and readers in Greeley and agree with the video above from UNC. It's certainly more of a stereotype in 2023, as when we're in Greeley, we don't really notice a smell most of the time.
That I-70/270 drive into Commerce City, though, now that's an entirely different conversation ...
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