Potential pot shop owners race to meet deadline for next round of licenses

Rich Hein/Sun-Times

A day after customers lined up for the first time to buy recreational marijuana, would-be weed entrepreneurs lined up Thursday for a shot at coveted licenses to open the next round of dispensaries.

The first round of “same-site” licenses for recreational sales went to a few dozen companies that were already in business selling medicinal weed in Illinois. Officials will now issue 75 “conditional adult use” dispensary licenses beginning in May for new standalone pot shops.

It’s not clear how many have applied since the state started accepting the applications for conditional licenses last month, but hundreds of people showed up at the Thompson Center in hopes of filing before the Thursday afternoon deadline.

Critics will be scrutinizing the 75 conditional license winners to see if the process balances opportunities for people of color, since by law, the first round of same-site licenses were only open to marijuana companies already in operation — and those businesses are almost exclusively run by white men.

“It was sacrilege,” said Toriano Sanzone, a black entrepreneur who applied Thursday for a conditional license to open a dispensary in North Lawndale. “Our community was decimated by the War on Drugs, and we were left out of the first round. But we’ve got a chance here to even the playing field.”

Niama Nash submits her application for a cannabis dispensary license at the Thompson Center Thursday.

Now, according to Ron Holmes, co-founder of the Majority-Minority Group which advocates for minority-owned businesses, “the state has a clear choice. They can’t say there’s not a pool of qualified, diverse applicants.”

Thirty applicants showed up Thursday wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “Color in Cannabis,” including Niama Nash, who wants to set up shop in Woodlawn.

“It’s important for us to have a presence in the industry,” she said.

The state has touted its program for “social equity” applicants, whose conditional use dispensary application fee is halved from $5,000 to $2,500, and who receive “additional points” on their applications if they have a weed-related arrest are come from communities hit hard by the War on Drugs.

Toi Hutchinson talks to reporters about the sale of cannabis in Illinois at the Thompson Center Thursday.

Toi Hutchinson, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s senior advisor on cannabis, said the state is easing into the rollout to ensure a fair shot at the market for all communities.

“The point was that we didn’t have open the doors wide, wide open right now so that opportunities wouldn’t be lessened [for people of color]. You don’t want to allow a market to be saturated and monopolized in a way that crowds out people who are new entrants into the market.”

Count Jasmine Turner among those potential new entrants. She said it took four months to put all her application materials together for a dispensary she hopes to open in the West Loop.

Jasmine Turner smiles after submitting her application for a cannabis dispensary license at the Thompson Center Thursday.

“We would’ve liked to see black ownership off the bat, but this is an opportunity to right that. I’m excited about what’s coming,” Turner said.

Wheeling entrepreneur Brian Marks, who isn’t among the social equity applicants, called cannabis his “passion” and lifesaver, saying it helped him beat addiction to painkillers after a skydiving accident 20 years ago. Now the former cellphone shop owner wants to open six dispensaries spanning northern Illinois, including one in Albany Park.

Brian Marks holds several drafts of his application after submitting it for a cannabis dispensary license at the Thompson Center Thursday.

And it’s been a laborious process, he said, forcing him to postpone holiday activities with his family as he raced to finalize thousands of pages of paperwork for the six applications.

“I haven’t slept more than four hours a night in two months,” Marks said. “I haven’t read this much since high school.”

Hutchinson said officials will evaluate statewide demand after the May dispensary licenses are issued to determine when and how many more licenses to sell pot could be issued.