Subdivision Residents Not High On Proposal For Pot Shop To Replace Northfield Bank

NORTHFIELD, IL — Village trustees are due to consider whether to give the green light to a proposed pot shop for the first time next week.

Plans for a cannabis dispensary to replace a bank at 161 Waukegan Road have been recommended by village staff and planning commissioners. But they have drawn opposition from residents of a neighboring subdivision.

An affiliate of the Chicago-based multi-state cannabis company Justice Cannabis Co., formerly called Justice Grown, hopes to operate a Northfield pot shop under the brand name "Bloc" in the Busey Bank building, formerly a Glenview State Bank, according to a memo from village staff.

The interior of the bank has been closed since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but its two 24-hour ATMs are still operational. According to the cannabis company's application for a special use permit, the 3,552-square-foot building would be kept intact, but the canopy of its drive-thru would be removed.

Steve Gutierrez, director of community development, said the location is consistent with the village's comprehensive plan, which calls for reinvestment in existing structures to generate more commercial activity and jobs. Various possible uses for the site included in a future land use map included gas stations, car dealerships, restaurants and salons.

"Based on the reports we've received from area Villages with existing dispensaries, we do not anticipate negative impacts on surrounding residential properties," Gutierrez said in the memo recommending approval of the special use permit. "The proposed use should not have any more impact than any number of other uses which are treated as special uses in the Zoning Code."

The cannabis company estimates it will generate between $6 million and $12 million in annual revenue, which would provide the village with between $325,000 and $650,000 in additional taxes. By comparison, the village budget anticipates about $2.2 million in sales tax revenue for the fiscal year.

In January 2021, a year after Illinois legalized the possession and retail sale of recreational marijuana, Northfield village trustees approved ordinances to allow for cannabis dispensaries in areas zoned as O/R Office/Research or B-1 Community Commercial districts. The Waukegan Road site is zoned B-1.

Representatives of the homeowner's associations representing people who live in the Courts of Regent Woods subdivision located to the east of the site said there is "widespread opposition" to the proposal from residents, citing concerns about traffic, security risks, light, noise and odor.

Sheila Mickus, president of the Environmental Preservation Association of the Courts of Regent Wood, and Linda Weinstein, president of the Regent Villas Condominium Association, said the potential for hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased tax revenue does not make up for the damage to the interests of its neighbors.

In a letter to the plan and zoning commission ahead of its Feb. 28 meeting to consider the special use permit application, the Mickus and Weinstein said it was "impossible to imagine" how village officials could consider a cannabis retailer as compatible with the nearby residential development, which includes 35 single family homes and three 11-unit condo buildings.

"Nor is there any basis to find that a retail cannabis store advances public safety, protects the use and enjoyment of our Regent Wood homes and preserves property values both in Regent Wood and nearby properties," said Mickus and Weinstein.

"We are not aware of any retail cannabis store that is located as part of a residential planned development or located immediately adjacent to homes in the manner proposed by the applicant," they said. "If the Village's search for revenue prompts it to seek a retail cannabis store in this small community, it ought to be located nowhere near a residential area."

In the police department's review of the plan, Northfield Police Chief William Lustig said he contacted his counterparts in Deerfield, Northfield and Skokie, and none of them reported having any nuisances or other issue with the cannabis dispensaries in their towns.

"We don't even know it's here," Lustig said the Skokie police chief told him, about the Curaleaf dispensary located in a former bank on Old Orchard Road. "The only time we go there is for false alarms."

The village board is set to review the special use permit application at its regular meeting Tuesday.

But even if trustees grant a permit to the proposed Bloc dispensary, its operators will have to wait for the resolution of a court case pending in a Cook County courtroom.

Licenses for new dispensaries were awarded last year — but a judge placed a hold on state regulators actually issuing them while hearing a challenge to the state's social equity licensing process, which initially favored veterans in ways some applicants allege was unconstitutional.

Related: Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries Permitted In Northfield