Updates: Okay, 303’s on the case and has many new details as well as vital updates to this situation. All this info and more is still on the Instagram account, linked below, which continues to share details (many in comments) that go into far more specifics than anything here or on 303, which nevertheless did a much more detailed job than I’ve done here.

It’s not just Todd Colletti. Buffalo Exchange is complicit…

(they just turned Insta comments off, still silencing voices brave enough to come forward in belated honesty)

…in allowing its Denver owner to allegedly abuse his staff for many years.

See stories below.

To read all the accounts (warning: triggering, awful, horrifying, depressing, angry-making): click here. Also in this account: free therapy resources. 

I, and many, are shocked, horrified, angry to hear about Buffalo Exchange’s complicity in allowing its local owner to abuse his staff for many years. To steal. To grope. To bully. To fire. To silence. To push drugs on minors, and push employees to take off their clothes and…

Gaddamnit.

I’ve loved this place. Great staff, always friendly, hip. And the clothes…while they’re less interesting than they used to be, that’s probably not BuffEx’s fault, just the expiring of all those sweet 70s and 80s clothes to time and wear. How many sweaters, cowboy shirts, shorts, pants, jackets have I tried on and bought, even when I kinda didn’t totally need them?

But now, today, reading the above-linked account—the horror.

The whole culture seems corrupt, and those who spoke out over the years appear to have been regularly fired. While it’s all “alleged,” it adds up, a friend of mine who was a manager confirms all of this, and another friend has confirmed this now, and others have messaged me…and there are mannnny people coming forward on the above-linked anonymous Instagram account. I’m a journalist, and it’s convincing. I’ll never be able to go again—even if they dislodge their regional owner, the corporate team has been aware and complicit in allowing this to go on for too long [update: corporate has turned comments off, instead of engaging respectfully].

For that reason, I echo calls to Boycott Buffalo Exchange, not just the local branches. Note: to any employees who need the paycheck, who need to make rent—we see you. There are other job postings around town, please network—but if you need to keep working at BE for now we get it. You are not the problem. You have to show up for work. Todd is—allegedly, and with near 100 corroborating stories, posts, and more every hour—the problem.

For many years I’ve been proud to wear secondhand, much of it from Buffalo Exchange. Elephant partnered with our friends at BuffEx 12 years back for an ecofashion show we put on at the Boulder Theater. BuffEx advertising a few times in then-Elephant Magazine, when we were still mostly-local. And while Boulder seems to have been somewhat isolated from the steaming pile of crap that was the Denver scene, I’m surprised and deflated that no one spoke up publicly…and that those employees in Denver, mostly, it appears, who did speak up internally were allegedly fired…and I’m grateful that folks are finally coming forward, and doing so responsibly.

We don’t do social media witch hunts. But this is less of a social media lies and invective pile-on than well-overdue 100x-corroborated behavior, and we’re therefore glad to bring attention to this, here.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDFLm1unf0y/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDLNXqcDSr-/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDJ0T83Hddq/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDJtgT-HqgA/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDJ0T83Hddq/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDJsqD3H-He/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDITCfAj9p9/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDHZnrCHZre/

There are many, many more.