Even though Deerfield trustees haven’t formally voted, yet, on whether to ban recreational marijuana sales within the village, they recently agreed to impose a 3% tax on those potential sales and collect the revenue once cannabis becomes legal for recreational use in Illinois on Jan. 1.
The unusual step has to do with a state deadline, according to village attorney Steven Elrod.
In a memo to officials, Elrod said some uncertain language in the new law legalizing cannabis at the start of 2020 could delay the village’s ability to collect the sales tax revenue, if the village doesn’t send a certified copy of a recreational marijuana tax ordinance to the Illinois Department of Revenue by Oct. 1.
To ensure the village can start using that new revenue source promptly in the new year, village board members voted, 5-1, during a meeting Sept. 16 to tax recreational cannabis sales within the village. Trustees, though, still have to settle the question of whether they would permit or ban recreational marijuana businesses from opening in Deerfield.
They are scheduled to consider that issue during a meeting Oct. 7 after the Deerfield Plan Commission recommended they craft regulations to allow for those sales.
But officials aren’t saying whether the recent move to collect the sales tax revenue tips their hand in any way. Mayor Harriet Rosenthal said that if village board members do decide to ban recreational marijuana sales, the newly approved tax ordinance would be revoked.
“If, in fact, we allow recreational marijuana in the village, we want to start collecting the tax Jan, 1,” Rosenthal said. “If we decide not to approve it, we will repeal the (tax) ordinance.”
Deerfield already is home to a medical marijuana dispensary called Grassroots Cannabis, which operates along Pfingsten Road near the Edens spur of the Tri-State Tollway.
The plan commission’s recommendation, which the panel approved Sept. 12, stipulates that only one recreational dispensary would be allowed to do business in Deerfield but not near schools, preschools, day care centers, parks or residential areas.
Based on the commission’s recommendation, a recreational dispensary would be allowed to operate in the area near Grassroots Cannabis, which is bounded by Waukegan, Pfingsten and Kates roads, as well as Deerfield’s southern border.
More than 25 people attended the recent hearing, where seven people spoke out against the idea of allowing the sale of recreational cannabis in Deerfield. Commission Chairman Larry Berg reminded the crowd that the commission only was dealing with land-use questions, not the issue of whether marijuana should be sold in the village.
Rosenthal said trustees still are studying all of the commission’s recommendations ahead of the village board’s meeting Oct. 7.
Steve Sadin is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
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