Medical marijuana a budding industry in central Illinois
BUSINESS | Patrick Yeagle
Springfi eld could soon have one or more businesses selling pot downtown.
But don’t get out your wallet just yet.
The businesses would be tightly controlled “dispensaries” of medical marijuana, and potential users must jump through several legal hoops to partake.
Applications to grow, dispense and use marijuana in Illinois’ Medical Cannabis Pilot Program are pending with the state, and the fi rst legal medical pot could surface in Illinois by spring 2015. Across Illinois, companies are vying for the coveted permits required to run grow operations and storefronts, selling a plant that is still technically illegal.
Todd Greenberg, corporation counsel for the City of Springfi eld, says three dispensary applicants asked the city to okay their plans to locate here. While the state makes the fi nal determination on which applicants will receive permits, the companies must receive letters of approval from the municipality in which they want to operate. Dispensaries can’t be located in residential areas, with a setback requirement of 1,000 feet from schools and day cares.
“Because dispensaries have to be away from schools and day cares, there are only a very few places in the city where they could be,” Greenberg said. “One is downtown, and the rest are in industrial areas.”
Greenberg says the city provided each of the three applicants a letter attesting that their proposed locations downtown would not violate any existing zoning rules. The letters became part of the application packets that each company submitted to the state for final approval.
State law allows 60 dispensaries across Illinois, divided between 48 districts. Melaney Arnold, spokeswoman for the Illinois Medical Cannabis Pilot Project, says the 48 dispensary districts mostly coincide with the 20 Illinois State Police districts downstate, but the heavily populated Chicago area is broken down into smaller dispensary districts. Arnold says the state received no dispensary applications for two districts, but that doesn’t mean the remaining districts will receive extra dispensaries.
Sangamon County is in ISP District 9, which also includes Logan, Menard, Morgan, Mason, Cass and Christian counties. That means the seven counties will share two dispensaries once those permits are awarded. Additionally, the seven counties in District 9 will share one cultivation center. In total, eight applications for cultivation centers have been filed with the state for District 9, along with four dispensary applications.
Norm Sims, director of the Springfi eld- Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission, says a handful of companies examined opening a cultivation center in
Sangamon County. He says a combination of late rulemaking at the state level and a lack of appropriately sized vacant buildings in the county made it unlikely for cultivation centers to locate in Sangamon County.
“Time works against these guys, and they’re not going to spend a bunch of money to get set up when they’re still waiting for approval,” he said. “If they’re building, they’re looking at spring before they even become operational.”
Additionally, both the City of Springfield and Sangamon County had to stretch the definitions of their zoning designations to fit marijuana facilities.
“The legislature spent a lot of time understanding medical marijuana,” Sims said. “What they don’t understand is zoning, because it’s not something they do every day. That’s local.”
Applications for cultivation centers are pending in other counties within ISP District 9. Chicago-based Cresco Labs wants to open a grow operation in Logan County, about a mile north of Lincoln next to Interstate 55. Springfi eld lobbyist Mark Strawn hopes to run a similar operation in Christian County, near Kincaid. Two other companies also want to set up in Christian County. Morgan County, which includes Jacksonville, has been courted by four separate applicants, while another applicant is interested in Cass County. Only one of the companies will be selected under the current regulations, however. Offi cials in Menard and Mason counties say they haven’t heard of any companies looking to set up in their jurisdictions.
Paul Schmitz, Christian County Board chairman, acknowledged that legitimizing an often villainized plant will be a culture change. However, he said his board mostly accepted the idea of locating a marijuana facility within their county.
“There were maybe two or three ‘nays,’ out of 16 of us,” he said. “I wouldn’t be a supporter of legalizing marijuana at this point, but if I have someone in my family who needs relief, I would much rather see that person be able to live a life that’s halfway decent as opposed to being wracked with pain.”
Melaney Arnold, the state’s medical marijuana spokeswoman, says about 8,000 people began the application process to use medical marijuana, but only about 1,500 have completed some or all of the three-part application. Arnold says 230 people statewide have been approved so far, but there is no deadline to apply.
For more information on the pilot program, visit www2.illinois.gov. To apply as a patient for medical marijuana, visit medicalcannabispatients.illinois.gov.
Contact Patrick Yeagle at [email protected].
