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Ananda Lowe submitting comments re: #206285, proposed zoning for adult use marijana establishments.
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To the Honorable Board:
Could you share any insight about how it was decided which neighborhoods could be zoned for dispensaries, and which could not? Much of Somerville is excluded from the dispensary zones. Why, and what are the criteria?
It is hard to think that someone looking at the map would not see race-related redlining, which is very disturbing. If stores become concentrated on all of Broadway in East Somerville, but other commercial areas like Porter Square, Somerville Ave., the western half of Highland, Alewife Brook Parkway, etc. are excluded, then from my personal experience it will be easy for Broadway to become seen as the “bad” part of town. It is not okay for the kids of E. Somerville to see themselves growing up in Somerville’s pot district, when kids of a different demographic do not.
Even in Union Square, which was historically a less privileged part of the city, there’s no reason for this neighborhood to be seen by outsiders or experienced by kids living here as a pot-heavy part of Somerville. Issues of image and self-image affect neighborhoods that are already seen as borderline, in a different way than neighborhoods that are considered the “good” or tonier parts of town.
Thank you for any information you can share with us, and also communicating to the BOA that to some of us, this already looks like unacceptable and race-related redlining.
Thanks,
Ananda Lowe