(WBBM NEWSRADIO) --Would-be marijuana shop owners breathed a sigh of relief Friday morning as a Cook County judge lifted a stay that had delayed state officials from issuing nearly 200 licenses for cannabis dispensary operators.
“I’m going to open some red wine and have a splash and a few puffs,” said Rickey Hendon, a former state legislator and a license winner, who said he and his investors had been waiting more than two years for this day. “This is like Christmas and my birthday all in one.”
Litigation filed by license applicant WAH Group had stalled the licenses from being formally issued for some nine months, but WAH Group requested the stay be lifted this week after the company was granted additional slots in license lotteries
will allow the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to begin issuing licenses to 185 candidates who had been awarded them in a 2021 lottery that was itself delayed months as the state struggled to implement rules for the drawing. Lawsuits, COVID-19-related delays and administrative gaffes ground the process to a near halt.
WAH Group LLC, which had disputed the results of the lottery, this week withdrew its opposition to releasing the licenses. WAH Group will continue to litigate the rules for the state to conduct “corrective lotteries” for another 50 or so licenses later this year, attorney Mazie Harris said Friday.
The timeline for formal issuance of the 185 licenses that were subject to the stay was not clear. Spokespersons for Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who counts marijuana legalization as one of his early legislative triumphs, and for IDPFR did not immediately return messages from the Chicago Sun-Times.
The additional licensees will more than double the 110 licensed pot shops operating in the state. The marijuana retailers that are currently open across the state are all run by companies that had been licensed as medical marijuana dispensaries
The IDFPR in March announced additional lotteries with new rules would add “at least 50” new cannabis dispensary licenses by the end of 2022 and that a lottery was likely to be held in late summer or early fall.
Hendon said he will look to open a location somewhere on the South or West side near downtown as soon as possible.
“We are not going to let the summer get away from us,” he said.
The delays around issuing these first groups of fully-retail locations has been justifiably drawn critics, said Akele Parnell, who has licenses to cultivate and to sell marijuana and serves as a consultant for social equity programs in other states.
But the process was stalled by bureaucratic snafus and litigation over the system for awarding licenses, few of the issues cropped up around elements intended to ensure that licenses went to minority business owners from communities that have historically suffered the harsh consequences of the war on drugs, Parnell said.
States that legalized marijuana before Illinois quickly saw the local pot industry dominated by a handful of large, national corporations.
“In Illinois, it really was a success in terms of making sure that people from Black and brown communities are going to have the majority of the licenses,” Parnell said. “From that perspective, it was a huge success. It just took a long time.”
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire & Chicago Sun-Times 2021. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire & Chicago Sun-Times 2022. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)