Finding parking in Denver’s Highlands neighborhood these days is challenging, but if you want to find parking to patronize businesses near 32nd Avenue and Tejon Street, may the Force be with you.

If you don’t have the Force, you should ask Wanda James, owner of Simply Pure dispensary, for permission. As she sat down with Colorado Politics to discuss the impacts redevelopment of the old neighborhood was having on her business, we watched a large blue forklift attempt to park in front of her shop.

She stopped our interview and raced outside to protect the handful of precious parking spots outside of her business. Using “persuasive” language, she successfully shooed the construction worker to the other side of the street, a small victory in what has been a hard fight.

“If I wasn’t sitting here, they would have blocked my parking,” James said. “When those spaces don’t exist, we have no business.”

Parking is the latest front in Denver’s ongoing struggle with gentrification as neighborhoods transform with redevelopment, pushing aside older residents and businesses for new construction, escalating prices and higher property taxes.

James is fighting a ground war.

Construction on a five-story residential project across from Simply Pure has been ongoing since May 2016. James provided Colorado Politics with numbers that show a 40 percent drop in recreational sales, with medical sales plummeting nearly 75 percent in three months. Patients with health issues aren’t willing or are able to walk several blocks to get to Simply Pure – if they can find parking at all.

The sales dip has been difficult to deal with, but for the last two weeks, the construction has caused Tejon Street to be closed during business hours. Fed up with unpermitted road closures on her block, on Monday she decided to take action.

James was outside her business before dawn, standing with her staff to physically block the barricades from closing the street. It worked and the road remained opened for the day, but the workers told her they would be back on Tuesday with a permit.

The only permit contractor Trammel Crow Residential (TCR) has requested was to close the parking lane on 32nd Avenue on Friday, Jan. 26, according to Denver Public Works (DPW).

“If they kept this parking lane closed beyond the 26th, they were not in compliance with their permit,” Nancy Kuhn, spokeswoman for Denver Public Works, said by email Monday.

Kuhn said DPW has asked the contractor to provide advance notification of their work to adjacent property owners during a pre-construction meeting with DPW staff before the project started, however, James said she has received no notices. Calls and emails to TCR have gone unreturned according to James.

Denver City Councilman Rafael Espinoza, who represents the area, joined her during a Facebook Live early Monday morning to lend his support.

“The rules are weak and they need to be improved, “Espinoza said during the Facebook Live. “Until there are more stringent rules at Public Works to compel developers…they will continue to use and abuse the commons the way they do.”

Colorado Politics reached out to Rick Hessler at TCR for comment on this story. His only response was, “no comment.”

The project across from Simply Pure is expected to wrap up in the next month or so, but the construction woes are far from fading. At the end of the block at 33rd Avenue and Vallejo Street sits a dirt site with construction fencing.

“We have two more developments starting any time now,” James said. “I need everyone to understand that what’s happening here is NOT going to happen there.”

She added she doesn’t want to simply hear talk from government officials.

“I need help. I need real people to stand up for small business,” James said. “We should not have to pay, or lose business to be in a neighborhood that is growing.”