Medical Marijuana Advocates Encourage Relaxing Zoning On Downtown Dispensaries

In what could be a boon for an already competitive downtown retail leasing market, Chicago City Council is calling to relax zoning restrictions preventing medical marijuana dispensaries from opening in the downtown core.

This isn't the first time City Council has proposed this, but its actions have spoken much louder than its words. Using its home rule powers, City Council originally restricted dispensaries to locations within Chicago's planned manufacturing districts. In 2014, the Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards Commission relaxed approved relaxing zoning restrictions so dispensaries could open in nightlife districts and residential areas. Would-be dispensary operators, however, have run into resistance from neighborhood residents and aldermen in their attempts to set up shop, notably on the Far Northwest Side, near Superdawg.

There's no opposition with this latest attempt to bring medical cannabis downtown. Ald. Ed Burke (14th) says there's "no compelling reason" for the restrictions to remain in place in the downtown core, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd), whose ward encompasses most of downtown and the Michigan Avenue shopping district, adds that opening dispensaries in the Loop would encourage medical marijuana users to head to a safer part of the city to fill their  prescriptions. Reilly adds that he doesn't see the Loop being flooded with pot shops, as the area is peppered with schools and day care centers where dispensaries can't operate anyway, under the city's original restrictions. [ST]