Politics & Government

Some North Suburbs Don't 'Just Say No' To Recreational Marijuana

"We can stand on principles, or we can become pragmatic," said one mayor who opposed legalization but now favors a recreational dispensary.

Local governments in north suburban communities are deciding whether to amend their zoning codes to permit cannabis-related businesses to open up in their towns once recreational marijuana becomes legal in Illinois on Jan. 1, 2020.
Local governments in north suburban communities are deciding whether to amend their zoning codes to permit cannabis-related businesses to open up in their towns once recreational marijuana becomes legal in Illinois on Jan. 1, 2020. (Shutterstock)

With fewer than a dozen weeks remaining before marijuana legalization takes effect in Illinois, elected officials in north suburban communities have so far been split on whether to permit cannabis-related businesses.

Local city councils and village boards cannot ban the the possession and private consumption of marijuana within their municipal boundaries. But they can ban its sale.

The legalization law that takes effect Jan. 1, 2020, the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, allows local governments to use zoning restrictions to keep adult-use cannabis dispensaries out of their towns.

Find out what's happening in Deerfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

It also allowed municipalities to impose an additional cannabis tax of up to 3 percent if they do allow its sale. In order to begin collecting that tax in January, local councils needed to have the new tax on the books by the start of this month.

Council members some towns, including Highland Park, Lake Forest, Libertyville, Winnetka and Glenview, have already effectively banned the sale of recreational marijuana. Those in Evanston, Highwood, Mundelein, Niles, Park City and Skokie have voted to allow new recreational dispensaries or allow existing medical ones to also sell products to people over 21.

Find out what's happening in Deerfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Meanwhile in Deerfield, Glencoe and Northbrook, zoning officials have favored offering adult-use cannabis permits — but village boards have yet to adopt final language amending their code.

Deerfield

Deerfield village trustees voted 5-1 on Oct. 7 to accept a recommendation from its plan commission to move forward with a zoning code amendment that would allow a single recreational dispensary special use permit to be issued.

"I fought the legalization of marijuana. I fought it at the medical level, and I fought it at the state level. I worked hard at that," said Mayor Harriet Rosenthal. "I take this all very seriously. But there is a reality, and while I fought it as hard as I could at the state level ... it is legal. We can stand on principles or we can become pragmatic. By regulating what we will allow in the village, I believe [it] is the pragmatic approach."

Deerfield Mayor Harriet Rosenthal called for recreational marijuana retailers to require customers to present two forms of government-issued identification at the board’s Oct. 7 meeting. (Village of Deerfield)

The vote to accept the plan commission recommendation followed nearly two hours of public comment. Worried parents expressed concerns about what message village officials would be sending to students if they permitted a recreational dispensary. Several residents mentioned the recent outbreak of life-threatening lung illnesses public health officials have linked to the use of THC vape pens sold on the illicit market. Others pointed to the failure of attempts at legislating morality and prohibition.

Trustee Mary Oppenheim said the zoning commission had put together a careful recommendation taking into account safety, appropriate placement and local control.

"I have a whole lot of confidence in our planning process here in town and the way that we deal with special use permits. One of the recommendations in this report is that this would always be a special use. Every single special use comes to the plan commission," Oppenheim said. "I'm very confident with that process. I'm totally in support of the report that the plan commission has given to us."

Trustee Dan Shapiro said it was a difficult balancing test, but it was better to be able to impose local protections on how cannabis products are distributed. He referenced concerns from parents who said Deerfield High School students estimated as many as 70 to 80 percent of their classmates use cannabis under current prohibitions.

"We know that it's there. For those kids that are gonna get it, they're gonna get it," Shapiro said, explaining why he favored more local control over a dispensary rather than an outright ban. "The balance, given the inevitability [of legalization], is towards: Let's regulate it. Let's control it. Let's see it — transparency — and let's deal with what I feel is the inevitability of this coming on the state and national level in an adult way, and deal with it the way we can."

Trustee Barbara Struthers agreed, pointing out the current underground market was far less safe than one regulated by the state.

"We have an opportunity here, in Illinois, they're actually regulating the growing conditions and making it as safe as a plant can be," Struthers said. "Somebody is going to have it, people are going to get it, I think the regulated drug will be safer than the black market drug."

Trustee Bill Seiden, the lone vote against accepting the plan commission recommendation, said he had done a series of rough calculations in an attempt to estimate the tax revenue that the village would generate from cannabis sales tax found it insufficient to justify "the effort, the aggravation and everything else" that would result from allowing an adult-use dispensary in the village.

"I would rather have gambling in Deerfield," Seiden said. "I'd vote on that before I'd vote for marijuana, and I don't want to have my kids, my grandkids, my great-grandkids look at me say, 'Well, you stood up there and you said it's OK, so why shouldn't I do it?'"

Deerfield currently has a single licensed medical marijuana dispensary called the Green House. It operates out of a shopping center at the southeast corner of Pfingsten and Lake Cook Roads, less than a half-mile from Rochelle Zell Jewish High School.

During public comment, several speakers identified themselves as patients at the dispensary. One man said he suffered a traumatic injury from a car accident and became addicted to opiates before he began using medical marijuana. Other patients emphasized that Illinois cannabis regulations were the strictest in the nation when it comes to contamination.

One of them, Karen Jacobson, said medical cannabis was vital for treating her multiple sclerosis.

"If any of these mothers of teenagers are worried about their children getting a vape pen, I would want them to get it from someplace legal where every bit of it was traced according to the Illinois law," Jacobson said. "Because if you don't have a dispensary, these children will get it somewhere — and they're likely to get it off the black market and those are the ones that are killing people."

Rep. Bob Morgan, the Deerfield Democrat representing the 58th District in the Illinois House who was the first to oversee the state's medical marijuana pilot program under former Gov. Pat Quinn and recently sponsored an expansion making it permanent, addressed the board during public comment. He said the village had a lengthy debate about legalizing medical cannabis five years ago. Concerns focused on three themes, including intoxicated driving, unsafe products and a rampant increase in use among children — the same concerns raised by opponents of allowing a recreational dispensary. Morgan said the past five years of the program have shown no evidence to support any of those worries.

"In fact, there's not a single incidence throughout the state of Illinois of anybody using medical cannabis in Illinois through one of our dispensaries throughout the state presenting themselves to the emergency room or to a hospital," Morgan said. "There's no evidence of that. Zero."

Regardless of whether board members choose to allow a dispensary, Rosenthal said, the village would be burdened by adverse effects of cannabis legalization.

"We are going to have the traffic. We are going to have the overdoses. We are going to have the 'psychotic episodes' that can occur. We're going to deal with them anyway," the mayor said.

Rosenthal presented a staff memo recommending a list of additional requirements for any potential future dispensary in the village, including making applicants reimburse the village for "all of its professional service expenses incurred ... in conjunction with consideration and review" of a special use permit request and a requirement that customers present two forms of government-issued identification.

When questioned about the proposals, which were not adopted by the board of the plan commission but could appear in a draft ordinance up for consideration next week, Rosenthal said she was "beginning to believe" that the village should also require two forms of identification to purchase alcohol and tobacco as well.

The mayor also recommended that a portion of the tax revenue generated by a possible cannabis dispensary in town be set aside to go to an anti-drug educational program such as Community the Anti-Drug, a collaboration of local government, school and nonprofit officials where Rosenthal formerly served as president.

Village staff and attorneys are drawing up a draft of the ordinance for first consideration on Oct. 21.

Watch more from Oct. 7 Deerfield Village Board meeting »

Glencoe

The Glencoe Village Board has yet to take a final vote on whether to allow cannabis businesses in town. Glencoe does not currently have a medical marijuana dispensary.

The village's zoning commission held a hearing Oct. 7 where it voted to recommend recreational cannabis businesses be classified special uses, at least within the commercial district adjacent to the Edens Expressway that currently houses car dealerships and animal hospitals.

Assistant Village Attorney Stewart Weiss explained villages may prohibit recreational cannabis businesses, but they may not forbid the possession of cannabis or permit it to be smoked in public places.

"Home delivery is not going to be allowed. Incidentally, neither are drive-thrus," Weiss said. "So what is left to municipalities to decide? They are allowed to prohibit or limit the operation of recreational cannabis businesses — they can pick the time, place, manner and even number of these that can operate within their boundaries."

Assistant Village Manager Sharon Tanner explained the village board will make a policy decision based on the zoning commission's recommendation. Discussion of taxation and zoning regulations would likely continue early into the new year, she said.

"The village board expressed preliminary interest in allowing cannabis businesses as special uses in the B2 and HF zoning districts," Tanner said. "That is an openness to it at this point, that is not a final decision."

Chair Howard Roin said the commission had received concerns from Winnetka residents that it was not "neighborly" to consider allowing recreational cannabis businesses on its southern border. He suggested if the village really wanted to allow cannabis retailers in town it should not restrict them from its central business district.

"My recommendation is that we have the courage of our convictions," Roin said. "If this causes people in Glencoe to think this is a bad idea, then they'll come tell us, at this meeting and others, but that we ought not to disallow the B1 district, to the extent it’s 500 feet or more from the school."

Commissioner John Satter said he would prefer a 1,000 foot separation zone and expressed a concern that a cannabis retailer in the Hubbard Woods Plaza could have an adverse impact on neighboring businesses.

"The HF is probably the only viable location, in my opinion, I mean, look: Northbrook is putting theirs on our border with them. There going to put it at Dundee and Skokie Highway," Satter said. "If we're going to have a dispensary then the Skokie Road location to me makes much more sense, it's much more isolated."

Commissioner Scott Novack said he appreciated comments from the public at the meeting but he disagreed with most of it.

"I heard a lot of hysteria. I heard a lot of what-ifs. I've been to dispensaries in Colorado, in California. This is now becoming a mature industry. Illinois is late to the game — the eleventh state," he said.

"I think a discussion is worth having on the distance from schools and parks, I think those are great discussions, but I just don't really subscribe to this thought that if there's legal sale of cannabis, now there's a drug dealer in town and it's going to bring in a bunch of seedy characters blowing smoke all over the place," he said. "I just don't personally subscribe to that. It's fine if other members of the board do, it's fine if members of the public do, it's not something that I've seen or expect to see in a situation like that."

Commissioners did not come to any agreement on whether to allow such businesses in the B2 districts, which include downtown Glencoe and the Hubbard Woods Plaza business district. The commission recommended a minimum 500-foot separation from sensitive uses, such as parks, schools and day cares.

The Glencoe Village Board plans to consider the zoning commission’s recommendation as soon as its Nov. 21 meeting.

Watch more from Oct. 7 Glencoe Zoning Commission meeting »


A map provided by the Village of Glencoe shows an area of Frontage Road near the Edens Expressway where zoning commissioners recommended allowing a potential recreational cannabis business. (Village of Glencoe)

Northbrook

In Northbrook, village trustees have signaled general approval for allowing a cannabis dispensary in town, and plan commissioners are giving preliminary consideration to an application from the same company that operates Deerfield's medical dispensary to open a recreational location at the northeast corner of Dundee Road and Skokie Boulevard.

A public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday for Grassroots Cannabis LLC's application to open a recreational dispensary under its "Greenhouse" brand. The Illinois law allows secondary locations from each of the 55 existing medically licensed locations among those permitted to operate Jan. 1.

A rendering shows a proposed recreational cannabis dispensary the company Grassroots wants to open at 755 Skokie Blvd. (via Village of Northbrook)

The Greenhouse Group was founded in Highland Park in 2014 by Mitch Kahn, Matt Darin and Josh Joseph. Its first medical dispensary opened in January 2016 and it currently operates locations in Deerfield, Mokena, Morris and Litchfield, according to its special use permit application.

Its parent company, Grassroots Cannabis, referred a request for an interview to its public relations firm, who declined to make a representative available Monday.

According to village staff, the firm is working with Northbrook police to "ensure an acceptable security plan is achieved and signed off on by" Police Chief Roger Adkins. According to a Sept. 28 memo from Cmdr. Mike Metrick, the police department's no longer has any specific concerns about site security.

Trustees are set to vote Oct. 22 on its plan commission's recommended amendments to the zoning code, which was approved on a 6-1 vote at the commission's meeting earlier this month.

About two dozen members of the group Opt Out Northern Suburbs demonstrated Saturday in downtown Northbrook against allowing adult-use cannabis businesses in town. Opponents of allowing the sale of recreational cannabis within the village also submitted a petition signed by 135 residents ahead of the Oct. 1 plan commission meeting.

Lake County

As for unincorporated Lake County, the county's Planning, Building and Development Department convened a recreational cannabis task force. The task force is holding its final meeting Oct. 23 and is expected to present its findings to the board in November ahead of possible action in December.

Aldermen in Park City last month approved the imposition of a cannabis tax and heard from representatives of Element 7, who plan to operate a recreational cannabis dispensary in town.

Earlier this month, Highwood aldermen passed an ordinance allowing for the issuance of a single special use permit to operate a dispensary in town.

"Being an early adopter would have advantages including identifying the best business partner for the community and giving Highwood early market share," Highwood City Manager Scott Coren said.

City officials in Waukegan and Zion are drawing up regulation and zoning amendments to allow recreational cannabis businesses, but have yet to consider any applications from specific operators.

Applications for licenses for those that do not already operate medical cannabis facilities first became available earlier this month. They will not be awarded until next May.

Former state Sen. Pamela Althoff, a McHenry Republican who now leads the Cannabis Business Association of Illinois, said some in the industry are concerned there will be a public outcry if consumers have no access to a nearby recreational dispensary once cannabis becomes legalized.

"There may be an expectation by the general public that, come Jan. 1, you'll be able to obtain recreational cannabis anywhere in the state of Illinois. I think the industry is concerned it will be are perceived that they are not ready — but they are," Althoff said. "The delay in accessing recreational cannabis is more the need and desire, by many units of local government, to evaluate — and in some cases obtain more input from their constitutiences — about whether or not their community wants to permit the location of an adult use or recreational dispensary."

Two suburbs — Wilmette and Rosemont — have already announced plans to hold local advisory referendums before permitting the sale of recreational cannabis in town.

State lawmakers are expected to make slight amendments to the legalization act during the upcoming veto session. They will return to Springfield for the final three days of the month and another three days in mid-November.


Which North Suburban Communities Are Moving To Permit Recreational Cannabis Dispensaries?

  • Buffalo Grove - Yes
  • Evanston - Yes
  • Highwood - Yes
  • Niles - Yes
  • Northbrook - Yes
  • Park City - Yes
  • Skokie - Yes
  • Deerfield - Yes, pending zoning
  • Waukegan - Yes, pending zoning
  • Wheeling - Yes, pending zoning
  • Zion - Yes, pending zoning
  • Gurnee - Maybe
  • Rosemont - No, pending referendum
  • Wilmette - No, pending referendum
  • Glenview - No
  • Highland Park - No
  • Lake Bluff - No
  • Lake Forest - No
  • Libertyville - No
  • Lincolnshire - No
  • Park Ridge - No
  • Winnetka - No
  • Vernon Hills - No

Related:

Existing medical marijuana licensees in Illinois are the only businesses eligible for early approval adult use licenses, which allow them to begin selling recreational cannabis on Jan. 1, 2020.

Updated to include results from additional municipalities.


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