Joliet Marijuana Shop Can Light Up Louis Mall's Economy: Ferak

JOLIET, IL — Recreational marijuana sales are coming to Joliet, and it's only 30 days away. While a good number of area communities captured headlines by rejecting recreational marijuana businesses, Joliet, Morris and Manhattan were among the handful of local municipalities that voted in favor of recreational marijuana licenses for their cities and villages.

Many people often forget that Joliet is already home to the medical marijuana dispensary known as 3C Compassionate Care Center. Until now, 3C has operated in an obscure office complex at the Rock Run Business Park. In November 2018, I reported 3C was branching out into a more visible location, right by the Louis Joliet Mall near I-55 and Route 30.

In preparation for the legalization of recreational marijuana in Illinois, 3C, which also goes by the name of Green Thumb Industries, signed a lease at the empty Mattress Firm near the Louis Joliet Mall. The 6,200-square-foot building has an address of 2903 Colorado Ave. 3C intends to have two recreational marijuana businesses operating in Joliet in 2020.

At this time a month from now, if you notice long traffic backups near the Louis Joliet Mall, it's probably because everyone is racing over to the old Mattress Firm to restock their marijuana supply.

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Green Thumb Industries"estimates they will see between 250 and 500 customers a day at this location. GTI intends to employ up to 35 people at the Colorado Avenue location. GTI has indicated that between 20 and 25 employees will be onsite at any given time," a recent city of Joliet memo states.

An influx of 500 more people per day buying marijuana at the old Mattress Firm will mean a lot of smoke-filled Volkswagen vans rolling past the Louis Joliet Mall starting in 2020.

This got me thinking. There's still a slew of empty stores near the Louis Joliet Mall such as ToysRUs, Sears and the shuttered Carson's store. These empty locales are ripe for the taking. The legalization of marijuana may become Joliet's gold rush.

So what are some marijuana-themed businesses that could work near the Louis Mall? Here's what I came up with:

Chester Cheetah Outlet Store. Marijuana users often get the munchies and Cheetos are a long-time favorite for the munchies. Not only would the Chester Cheetah store carry Cheetos memorabilia and swag, but it would also sell Cheetos by the bulk. You'd be able to buy Cheetos like you can get dog food, in bags weighing 4 pounds, 25 pounds and 50 pounds.

Little Debbie Snack Emporium. Not everybody likes to smoke reefer. Some people like it as an edible snack. The upcoming arrival of 250 to 500 vehicles per day at the old Mattress Firm offers a great opportunity for someone to open a Little Debbie snack shop nearby.

Wild Berry Incense. The Wild Berry Incense website proclaims it's "America's Best Incense" so you know it has to be good. Wild Berry Incense smells include: fruits, florals and greens, earthy, woods, spicy, food-like, holiday and fresh and clean. A smart entrepreneur would move on this idea fast to help mask the lingering stench of marijuana fumes in your vehicle or domicile.

Everything LAVA Lamps. When I was in college, LAVA Lamps were a necessity in stoners' dorm rooms. Original LAVA lamps are already sold at many places including Walmart, Target, Menards and Amazon, but come January, Joliet needs a LAVA Lamp store that does one thing and one thing right, and that's sell LAVA Lamps. Because LAVA Lamps are so cool with their funky neon colors, this store would only be allowed to operate after dark.

Joliet's Marijuana Museum: A Look Back at the Prohibition Years. Some of you may know that Joliet was an important footnote in our nation's Prohibition Era thanks to Al Capone and other bootleggers and mobsters. Now that recreational marijuana goes legal in Illinois next month, Joliet deserves a tourist attraction where marijuana smokers can gather to reflect on the city's history when marijuana wasn't so legal, a time when hundreds of local, and not-so-local, residents were stuffed into the back seat of Joliet or Will County Sheriff's squad cars and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for smoking or selling marijuana.

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Our Joliet Marijuana Museum would be located by the Louis Joliet Mall, preferably near the Old Mattress Firm store so marijuana shoppers could make their trip to Joliet a full-day experience. The museum could highlight some of the biggest marijuana busts in the Joliet area and the culprits who went to jail. I have even an idea for the museum director: Michael Glenn Silliman, the 64-year-old California man who was arrested Nov. 18 after Will County Sheriff's deputies stopped his white camper in Joliet along I-80 near Briggs Street. Turns out, Silliman was transporting 190 pounds of marijuana across the country, according to police.

While I think Silliman could be a great museum curator, I'm worried about his availability. As of Dec. 1, he still remained lodged inside Will County's Jail, after a Will County judge set his bail at $1 million almost two weeks ago.

New City Parking Deck For Marijuana-Only Shoppers: The City of Joliet has voiced concern about possible traffic problems once 3C opens its recreational marijuana store at the old Mattress Factory. There are only 27 total parking spaces, city documents show. If 3C has 500 customers per day visiting the store, traffic may be a nightmare getting in and out, not to mention the rise in parking lot fender benders and Joliet Police calls to write up accident reports.

Fortunately, I have a solution. Since theJoliet City Council just approved a steep increase in downtown parking fees come January, I think it's a bad idea to use that $3 million in projected new revenue to refurbish the city's two 1979-era parking garages downtown. Instead, I suggest that Joliet use the $3 million to buy either the Wendy's, Dollar Tree or Taco Bell near the new 3C marijuana store and build a parking deck for Joliet's marijuana shoppers.

If my parking deck idea near the Louis Joliet Mall isn't feasible, then perhaps the city should operate shuttle trams, like they have at Disney World. It would be what government politicians like to call a win-win. The trams would take the marijuana shoppers to all of the marijuana-themed destinations that I've mentioned above. The city staff would inflate because all of the new tram operators and tour guides would need to be made official city employees, complete with six-figure salaries and a taxpayer-funded city pension.