Highwood Cannabis Dispensary Opens, Highland Park's Expands Sales

HIGHWOOD, IL — Highwood's first marijuana dispensary opened last month ahead of a state licensing deadline. Meanwhile, Highland Park's dispensary received state and local authorization to begin selling to customers other than medical cannabis cardholders.

They were some of more than two dozen licenses that were newly issued or changed hands in March as Illinois' consolidating cannabis corporations reached a cap on pot shops.

The sixth Windy City Cannabis dispensary opened March 26 at 260 Green Bay Road. It's located in the former location of Barrel Crossing Tap & Grill, which closed in the summer of 2017.

Highwood City Manager Scott Coren told Patch the opening of the dispensary continues the revitalization of a block that has added the restaurants Greenwood American Kitchen and Bar and Slyce Coal Fired Pizza Company in recent years, with plans for a new location of the Chicago Persian restaurant Noon O Kebab.

"The dispensary was approved after significant public input and the community looks forward to supporting its newest business for many years to come," Coren said in an email.

The opening came ahead of a March 31 deadline written into the law that legalized recreational marijuana in Illinois 15 months earlier, the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act.

Each of the 55 licensed pre-legalization medical marijuana merchants was immediately permitted to open a secondary location. But state officials have not issued the 75 to 185 dispensary licenses the law calls for — due to challenges to its licensing lottery and executive orders issued by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

All of those licenses had to be issued by the start of this month, leaving the number of dispensary licenses statewide now effectively capped at the 110 permitted on Jan. 1, 2020.

Last month set a record with more than $109 million of pre-tax sales of recreational cannabis, according to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. It also saw multibillion-dollar multi-state operators take over some of the few remaining independent operators in the state.

Elevele in Highland Park was purchased by Chicago-based Verano before it received City Council approval March 15 to begin selling recreational weed.

Evanston's dispensary was also purchased by Verano after being transferred from Pharmacann to MedMen in an abortive merger.

Grassroots, which had Greenhouse-branded locations in Skokie, Northbrook and Deerfield, was sold to Massachusetts-based Curaleaf in an $830 million deal that also covered the Windy City Cannabis-branded locations.

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The new Highwood dispensary appears to be changing hands again, as Curaleaf looks to get under the 10-license per operator limit. The privately held Atlanta-based company Parallel, headed by William "Beau" Wrigley Jr., announced on April 1 it would purchase Windy City Cannabis’ six sites for $100 to $155 million in cash and stock.

The announcement of Wrigley's purchase came a day after workers at Windy City Cannabis' 923 Weed St. location in Chicago narrowly voted to unionize. A representative of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union confirmed Curaleaf has filed an objection to the 11-10 vote. Workers at a Lincoln Park dispensary and Joliet cultivation facility run by Chicago-based Cresco were the first in the state to unionize.

State Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, said he is filing a clean-up amendment Tuesday to the cannabis legalization law in an attempt to better accomplish its intention of diversifying the industry.

The changes include a plan to award the new 110 licenses the legalization law calls to be issued between January and December via a new lottery for existing social equity applicants and a separate new social equity medical lottery for five dual medical-recreational dispensary licenses, according to a summary of the amendment.

It would also offer patients the option to purchase medical cannabis at any dispensary rather than registering at one, and allow existing dispensaries to be permitted to relocate nearby after the first rounds of social equity licenses are issued.