Marijuana Moratorium Expires, Lake County To Consider Pot Shops

LAKE COUNTY, IL — The Lake County Board voted unanimously Tuesday to begin formulating zoning regulations for cannabis businesses, county officials announced. The vote came days before the expiration of a one-year moratorium on the consideration of recreational marijuana ventures in unincorporated portions of the county.

The next step is consideration of a set of draft zoning regulations during a public hearing by the Lake County Zoning Board of Appeals. County officials pledged to announce a date for a public hearing and provide other opportunities for input from the public within weeks.

Board member Bill Durkin, the Waukegan Democrat who chairs the Public Works, Planning and Transportation Committee, thanked fellow board members and county staff for researching the topic of adult-use cannabis and seeking to learn lessons from the first year of recreational marijuana legalization in Illinois.

“We’re now ready to move forward with the process for unincorporated Lake County and we look forward to hearing the public’s input on the proposed regulations in the coming weeks," Durkin said in a release after the Jan. 8 meeting.

The board's zoning decisions will only affect unincorporated portions of the county. Individual municipalities have the authority to determine whether to permit the pot industry from setting up shop within incorporated areas.

In October 2019, the county board voted to impose a 3 percent sales tax on recreational marijuana purchases in incorporated areas and 3.75 percent in unincorporated areas, both are the maximum permitted under the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act.

The act legalized the possession and retail sale of cannabis to those over 21 and created procedures for issuing new licenses for dispensaries, cultivation centers, craft growers, infusers, processors and transporters.

Citing the COVID-19 pandemic and issues with the application process, Gov. J.B. Pritzker's administration delayed the issuance of new licenses. The process is the subject of multiple pending court challenges.

EARLIER: Lake County Board Reconsiders Regulating Recreational Marijuana

Lake County currently has only one dispensary, a dispensary in Mundelein owned by Green Thumb Industries, or GTI, under its brand Rise.

With no new licenses issued to any firm other than those already established in the state's medical marijuana market before legalization, large multi-state operators like GTI control the vast majority of the state's legal industrial cultivation and retail sales.

On Tuesday the company announced it sold $100 billion worth of stock to a single institutional investor in an initial public offering.

Illinois' fewer than 80 dispensaries sold nearly $670 million worth of recreational cannabis last year. Over $174 million more was spent on taxes.

With only one recreational dispensary in Lake County, officials are legally prohibited from disclosing how much tax revenue the county has received, due to state law that considers an individual business' sales tax bill to be a confidential trade secret.