Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to establish zoning rules for the sale of recreational marijuana in Chicago cleared the City Council’s Zoning Committee early Wednesday, setting the stage for full Council approval later in the day.
The City Council’s 20-member Black Caucus had threatened to hold up the ordinance over concerns that black and Hispanic people are not among the owners of 11 medical marijuana dispensaries that would get a running start when recreational weed sales begin Jan. 1.
They would be allowed to immediately pivot to recreational marijuana sales during the first year of legalization and have the exclusive right to open a second location until late spring, when new businesses would finally get a chance to bid.
Black Caucus Chairman Jason Ervin (28th) considered the playing field so tilted against minorities most victimized by the war on drugs, he vowed to introduce an ordinance to delay the legalization of recreational pot in the state’s biggest potential market until July 1.
But when the Zoning Committee reconvened Wednesday morning prior to the full Council meeting, the mayor’s revised ordinance was approved.
It was a hard-earned victory for Lightfoot, whose top aides lobbied hard to avoid a delay that could have cost the city sorely-needed revenue.
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Minutes later, the Black Caucus held a news conference to announce plans to seek redress in the Illinois General Assembly.
“We’re prepared to work with the legislature, the mayor to find a solution ... so that equity looks like what equity really should look like,” Ervin said.
“In the end, we want to see people that look like us in this business profit from it and not the eleven that exists.”
Any legislative fix must close “loopholes” that give the owners of recreational marijuana dispensaries social equity credit without real minority participation, Ervin said.
“Social equity means...ownership. People who look like the folks standing up here having an opportunity for ownership. Not participating as workers,” Ervin said.
“This is probably the biggest wealth generator in this state for years to come. And for African-Americans to not have a serious piece of that is a problem.”
Why, then, is the Black Caucus allowing the zoning ordinance to go through, forfeiting the political leverage its 20 members have in the City Council?
“The zoning needs to go through. Individuals that choose to participate need to know where these things can be sited. We have to have a process in which to do that,” Ervin said.
Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), the mayor’s most outspoken City Council critic, strongly disagreed. He wants African-American aldermen to flex the muscle they have.
“You’re cutting us out. We’re just saying, cut us in...Don’t give everybody a head start at the expense of our community. Why are we gonna start the game and we’re already 22 points behind,” Beale said, threatening to hold up the zoning ordinance.
The smooth sailing on Wednesday was a sharp contrast to what happened the night before.
On Tuesday, the Zoning Committee was brought to a two-hour halt as members of the Black Caucus met privately to discuss Lightfoot’s latest zoning proposal covering where legal pot shops will be able to operate.
Representatives from the mayor’s office and other aldermen ultimately met with caucus members that culminated in a series of changes to the plan, which would make the proposed downtown “exclusion zone” smaller and give aldermen more control over pot zoning.
Th revised version of Lightfoot’s zoning plan would prohibit recreational weed sales in the Central Business District. The original proposal’s “exclusion zone” for pot shops would have stretched from Oak Street to Ida B. Wells Drive and from Lake Michigan to LaSalle Street in River North and to the Chicago River in the Loop.
The modified ordinance would prohibit those sales north of the river from Lake Michigan to State Street, instead of LaSalle Street, and extend the northern boundary to Division Street, rather than Oak Street.
Under the plan approved Wednesday, the southern boundary of the weed-free zone would be moved north from Ida B. Wells Drive to Van Buren Street.
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) said Wednesday he would have preferred a “more permissive” ordinance that would have yielded more money for the cash-strapped city.
Lightfoot has said she’s sympathetic to the Black Caucus’ demands for “social equity and minority ownership” of the city’s recreational marijuana dispensaries. But she claimed the place to resolve those concerns is Springfield not Chicago.
Nothing will be accomplished by holding up a zoning ordinance needed to put a framework in place to get recreational weed rolling by the start of next year, the mayor said.
“The way to accomplish what they want to accomplish — which is to create avenues for minority business people to come into this marketplace — isn’t to kill it in Chicago. The way to fix this is in Springfield through legislation,” Lightfoot said.
