Journal & Topics Media Group

Glenview Trustees Recommend Plan Commission Consider Recreational Marijuana Ban

Oct. 8 Public Hearing Set; Trustees Split On Dispensaries, United Opposing Lounges

Glenview Village Hall, 2500 East Lake Ave.

Although it was not a formal vote, Glenview trustees at their Tuesday, Sept. 3 board meeting, directed plan commissioners and staffers to draw up plans to bar businesses from selling recreational marijuana in the village.

A recently signed state law makes recreational marijuana legal at the state level beginning Jan. 1, 2020. It remains illegal under federal law.

Although municipalities would not be able to ban individuals from possessing, transporting or using marijuana in their communities, so long as state law was adhered to, that same state law gives municipalities wide latitude to regulate or even bar marijuana related businesses through zoning codes.

Plan commissioners are expected to hold a public hearing on the issue and begin the process of coming up with formal recommendations for village trustees at their Tuesday, Oct. 8 plan commission meeting. Before any ordinance would be enacted to allow or ban marijuana businesses in the village, plan commission recommendations would come back to village trustees for a final vote.

In an informal polling of the village board by Village President Jim Patterson to give direction to village staff, trustees were in agreement that smoking lounges, also called cannabis cafes, where consuming marijuana on the premises could be allowed under state law, was not something they wanted to see in the village.

Opinions among trustees on allowing recreational marijuana dispensaries and cultivation centers in the village were far from unanimous.

Trustees Debby Karton, Karim Khoja and Mary Cooper all said they wanted a moratorium to see how recreational marijuana would roll out in other communities before allowing it in Glenview.

Village Manager Matt Formica advised trustees the village had received inquiries and advised barring sales or cultivation centers in the village, with the ability to come back and change zoning ordinances later, would be preferable to instituting a moratorium. Patterson’s informal poll showed three trustees favored banning sales and cultivation.

Trustees John Hinkamp and Chuck Gitles said they were open to allowing dispensaries in the village. Michael Jenny was not at the meeting.

Jenny later said he stands by a statement given to the Journal during his election campaign this spring. In a March questionnaire completed for the Journal, Jenny said, “I would support at least a temporary ban on businesses selling recreational marijuana in Glenview so we can protect young people while monitoring and learning from how it is implemented in other communities.”

Hinkamp was critical of the process. “We are to give direction [to the plan commission] before a public hearing?” Hinkamp said rhetorically. “Sounds kind of Soviet,” he said referring to the former Communist world superpower.

“We are elected, the plan commission is appointed, so it’s not Soviet, it’s fully democratic,” Karton fired back.

In discussing zoning, trustees discussed the possibility of using a similar model they used in setting up zoning for sex related businesses, which locates those businesses in industrial areas and places a minimum buffer around sensitive sites such as schools, day care centers and similar areas.

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