Lightfoot: Urgent need for pot spots
Aldermen didn’t vote on first try at establishing sites
The city has to move forward with rules creating public spots where Chicagoans can legally smoke weed, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday, but she wouldn’t tip her hand about whether she will make changes to her plan after aldermen had problems with her first attempt.
The City Council license committee is set to reconvene Tuesday, after aldermen didn’t vote this week on Lightfoot’s plan to allow tobacco shops to get licenses to let them host cannabis smokers.
Lightfoot on Friday said the time to act is now, lest many residents be left with nowhere they can legally smoke the marijuana they purchase in the recreational dispensaries that opened Jan. 1.
“We have to have places for people to legally consume marijuana, particularly renters whose landlords are not going to let them consume in their residences,” she said at a City Hall news conference. “So that was the whole thrust of carving out some spaces. We’re going to take this step by step. But I think the first place to start, the obvious place to start, is with the tobacco places. These will be separate rooms with separate ventilation. The votes are there, and we’ll bring it back up next week and get it done.”
Lightfoot was noncommittal when asked whether she will amend the ordinance to address the concerns of aldermen who worry there won’t be enough such businesses on the South and West sides that will shell out $4,400 for the on-site consumption licenses, or that cannabis dispensary owners will open their own tobacco stores next to the dispensaries that will turn into de facto weed party houses.
“(Aldermen) have given us some feedback, which we will take into consideration,” she said. “But we do need to move forward, and it’s just a question of when, not if. Because we have to give people a legitimate place where they can go and consume without worries about being evicted or something happening to them on the street. We’ll see. We’re taking into consideration the helpful feedback that we received, but we have to move forward.”
Also Friday, Lightfoot said it’s right for law enforcement to investigate after powerful former lobbyist Mike McClain, a longtime confidant of House Speaker Michael Madigan, referred in an email to a state worker who he said “kept his mouth shut” about “the rape in Champaign.” The email, first reported by WBEZ-FM 91.5, did not include any other details.
The situation is about McClain, not Madigan, Lightfoot said when asked whether it will affect her ability to work with the House speaker in Springfield this spring. “Look, this is about Mike McClain and his actions,” she said.
Lightfoot will need Madigan’s help to pass an ambitious legislative package in Springfield that includes a graduated real estate transfer tax she wants for Chicago and changes to the tax structure for the city’s proposed casino.