Pubdate: Sun, 03 Jan 2016
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2016 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Authors: David Migoya and Ricardo Baca

WHERE THE POT IS

Marijuana-Related Businesses Disproportionately Located in Denver's 
Low-Income, Minority Neighborhoods

Recreational marijuana businesses have proliferated so rapidly in 
some of Denver's poorer neighborhoods during the past two years that 
city officials are exploring ways to disperse future growth more evenly.

The pot boom in neighborhoods such as Elyria Swansea, Globeville and 
Northeast Park Hill in north Denver, and Overland to the south, 
wasn't exactly unexpected, but it still has residents and community 
groups concerned.

Marijuana business owners say they've moved into the parts of town 
that city regulations restrict them to be. They say they work hard at 
being responsible neighbors in ways that include local hiring and 
community outreach. Starbuds Dispensary operates at East 47th Avenue 
and Brighton Boulevard in the Elyria Swansea neighborhood. (Brent 
Lewis, The Denver Post)

"Between navigating the zoning laws ... and finding amendable 
landlords willing to lease their properties to federally illegal 
businesses, the list of workable locations for marijuana dispensaries 
shrinks considerably," John Lord, owner and CEO of LivWell, said.

The Denver Post used a city database of more than 600 marijuana 
business licenses to examine where industry growth has occurred and 
which neighborhoods faced the biggest transformations.

Facilities that grow recreational pot have concentrated along the 
I-70 corridor to the north and the Santa Fe Drive and I-25 corridors 
to the south, in neighborhoods where residential and light industrial 
areas mix.

Other marijuana-related businesses - medical dispensaries, retail 
outlets and marijuana-infused-product factories - have pocketed along 
thoroughfares such as Colfax Avenue, Federal Boulevard and Broadway, 
the analysis shows, and the neighborhoods that surround them.

"Many low-income neighborhoods are next to industrial sites. That's 
just the lay of the land," said Charlie Brown, a former Denver city 
councilman who led committees that studied and recommended rules on 
where the businesses could go. "To change the rules today is tricky."

MAP: View a map of marijuana-related businesses by neighborhood with 
income data and school locations

Neighborhood residents and business leaders say they've been 
concerned since the beginning that Colorado's new marijuana industry 
would settle into their backyards and that communities of color and 
lower incomes would see a disproportionate share of those businesses.

"You would think we've borne our fair share already," said Candi 
CdeBaca, a member of the Cross Community Coalition in Globeville and 
longtime resident there. Her home - in the family since her 
great-grandfather - faces a large marijuana grow operation. The 
downtown Denver skyline rises above the Greenwerkz grow houses in 
central Denver. (Brent Lewis, The Denver Post)

"We've been around, and it happens over and over," she said. "People 
who bet their life two years ago that this would happen would have 
won the bet."

Odors from the pot grows and fears of rising crime and youth 
marijuana usage top the neighborhood concerns. There have been 
persistent complaints about unlocked trash bins - by law they are 
supposed to be padlocked when not in use - and vagrants picking 
through them for marijuana remnants.

City crime data show marijuana-related crimes from 2012 through 
November 2015 occurred most in Elyria Swansea, followed by Overland 
and Five Points. Globeville ranked fourth. Crimes appear to have 
increased only marginally after Jan. 1, 2014, when sales of 
recreational marijuana began statewide.

Residents say the potential benefits from a growing industry in the 
community, such as job opportunities, are less evident to them. They 
see marijuana as just the latest in a string of undesirable 
industries settling in their midst.

"The areas are the trash can of the Denver community, and that's been 
the view for years," said Vernon Hill, a Globeville resident and 
businessman who works with Globeville Civic Partners. "There are more 
junkyards and more salvage lots than other areas, but we have houses 
intertwined, too. It's our home."

Business owners say they try to be good neighbors.

Sanders said the company has hosted job fairs to attract employees 
from the neighborhoods where she operates and even passed out 
vegetables grown in the company garden.

" 'This is free?' they'd ask. And we'd say, 'Here, have it,' " 
Sanders said. "It was really cool to sit there and meet the community."

But the concentration of marijuana businesses in certain areas has 
given city officials pause in allowing new businesses to be licensed. 
In November, the City Council placed a four-month moratorium on new 
licenses until officials can have a closer look at where shops are 
today, including taking walking tours of neighborhoods. There is talk 
of extending the moratorium for at least two years, perhaps up to four.

"We agree that there are enough marijuana businesses in Denver," said 
Ashley Kilroy, executive director of Denver's Office of Marijuana 
Policy. "Seeing the neighborhoods up close reinforces that feeling of 
saturation and also makes it apparent that there is still room for 
additional growth and expansion of the industry in an area that is 
already inundated."

With about one marijuana business for every 91 residents, the Elyria 
Swansea, Globeville and west Northeast Park Hill neighborhoods are 
tops among the areas the pot industry calls home, the data show. 
Swansea has 78 licensed businesses, Globeville 24 and the western 
half of Northeast Park Hill 54, city records show.

Denver's count of marijuana businesses is lower than The Post's 
because the city does not separately count different licenses at the 
same address. It's possible for the same owners to hold different 
licenses in the same building, such as one for a retail outlet and 
one for a medical dispensary, each with its own entrance spread over 
a block. The Post counted each distinctive licensee to better show 
the concentration of actual businesses.

"We have to stop this undue concentration, especially in communities 
that haven't seen a grocery store or a business that supports the 
community health in years," said District 3 Denver Councilman Paul 
Lopez, a forewarner that marijuana businesses would end up precisely 
where they are today.

The highest concentration of marijuana shops compared to population 
in a single federal census tract - an area consisting of about 1,500 
households - falls along the city's southern bit on either side of 
the Santa Fe Drive corridor that mostly covers the Overland 
neighborhood, with one marijuana license for every 47 people who live 
there. The reason is partly from the many medical dispensaries that 
dot the western side of Broadway's "Green Mile."

"I knew we had a lot, but the number of them is truly a surprise," 
said Councilman Jolon Clark, whose District 7 encompasses the area. 
"We are seeing more data available now for us to study the issue 
better. It's become a very large industry, and the data can help us 
see if it's become what we wanted or not."

The U.S. Census Bureau says the tract in Clark's district is about 70 
percent minority, mostly Latino. The tracts that make up the 
Globeville and Swansea neighborhoods are even more so, with the 
latter nearly 90 percent minority.

City leaders tussled in 2013 over the idea that some parts of town 
would likely hold the greater number of marijuana businesses, despite 
a litany of prohibitions designed to avoid clustering. For instance, 
dispensaries cannot be within 1,000 feet of each other or any school 
or a day care center.

"We saw there could be an opportunity for grow and MIPs 
(marijuana-infused products) to take advantage of this industrial 
zoning we have," said Councilman Albus Brooks, whose District 9 
encompasses both northern communities. " We had no idea that it would 
be almost a monopoly on the real estate as it is now."

So while Denver's inner residential neighborhoods are largely devoid 
of the 633 marijuana businesses throughout the city - more than half 
of them grow houses - the lowest-income areas, typically a mixed bag 
of industrial and residential buildings, have seen the most.

"It creates an incredible concentration, which has an effect on 
quality of life, and that's a major concern," Brooks said. "We can't 
let one industry run roughshod over that quality of life."

The color of a neighborhood's residents doesn't figure into a formula 
for success, said Brian Ruden, a co-owner of Starbuds.

"My best Starbuds locations are in white, affluent neighborhoods - 
namely the DU location and the Louisville location," he said. "Shops 
are located wherever the zoning and setbacks allow. That has 
everything to do with it, not targeting minorities."

Starbuds also has a retail location along Brighton Boulevard in the 
Elyria Swansea neighborhood, city license records show.

That location is about a block away from Drew Dutcher, vice president 
of United Community Action Network - closer than the grocery store he 
has to travel to nearly 2 miles away.

"People here usually shop for groceries at the 7-Eleven," Dutcher 
said. "Something's out of balance."

Globeville and Swansea have elaborate master plans developed by city 
officials and area residents over many months - redevelopment of the 
National Western Stockyards, I-70, Brighton Boulevard among the 
projects - but they require zoning changes for them to work. 
Residents say they are worried that property owners with lucrative 
marijuana businesses will be reluctant to make such changes.

"The problem is the property owners who need to rezone," said Nola 
Miguel, director of Globeville, Elyria Swansea LiveWell, a community 
resource group. "If it wasn't for the marijuana, many would do it, 
and we'd see mixed-use residential and retail like other parts of the 
city. But it's tons of money, and there's no desire to change that 
zoning because of it."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom