GRANT GARSTKA

With the legalization of recreational marijuana and as an effort to better understand Denver’s marijuana landscape, the City and County of Denver put in place a two-year moratorium on newcomers to the market on January 1st, 2014. In December 2015, the moratorium was extended an additional 120 days while City Council further considered policy and fully assessed the marijuana industry’s impact on the city and communities. During the moratorium, I was tasked to conduct spatial analysis to identify the total number of eligible dispensary locations that remain in the city.

 

I used Python to create an iterative process to allocate land for dispensaries across the city.  This allowed me to determine the remaining number of eligible locations in the city. 

 

While this research pioneered spatial analysis methods on the topic of marijuana legalization for a city government, these methods also contribute to spatial allocation methods and discussions in the fields of GIS and Geography. 

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Learn more about this project at the following links: