Dispensary foot traffic helps deter crime

Something for the NIMBY folks who are against dispensaries near them to consider:

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I would be cautious to say that dispensaries reduce crime – as the article itself notes, a similar effect happens when restaurants close in area. The kinds of crime likely to increase upon closure would be things like petty theft, which generally prefers empty places.

The study doesn’t examine the kind of crime most NIMBYs worry about, which would be robbery. If a dispensary is in an area, does the amount of robbery increase, or stay the same? Hopefully future research will be able to answer that question.