The Lollapalooza kids, finally freed from lonely lockdown and virtual learning, are having a blast. Parents across Chicagoland wait nervously for their teens to come home safely. And Chicago holds its breath that Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s decision to go ahead with the annual musical bacchanal won’t go down as reckless in the wake of a highly transmissible delta variant that threatens to keep the COVID-19 crisis blazing here well into the fall.
Meanwhile, the Tribune reports, weed dealers all over town are expecting their best-ever week.
2021 is the first year that marijuana sales have been legal during the Lollapalooza weekend and the Tribune’s Robert Channick reports that pot emporia have been staffing up on budtenders, stocking up on gummies and ringing up colossal profits. Through the end of June, the business was on track to rake in a whopping $1.65 billion in Illinois sales.
$1.65 billion! In only about 18 months, the sale and private consumption of marijuana has gone from an illegal activity in Illinois to a rare economic growth area in an otherwise struggling retail economy.
In the early days of legalized pot, planned stores generally were accompanied by zoning battles and neighborhood resistance. And many communities in the state still have decided to opt out, as is their right. But in Chicago, just over the last few months, pot stores have become strikingly prominent.
Take the situation in Greektown. The famous old-school restaurants on the strip of Halsted Street between Van Buren and Randolph streets were, for decades, part of the fabric of not just the Greek community but reaches far beyond. Alas, they’re been flaming out like saganaki in recent months. Pegasus Restaurant and Taverna, Santorini, The Parthenon and Rodity’s are all dark.
But if your product of choice is marijuana rather than moussaka or pastichio, Greektown is thriving. The facade of Rodity’s, built to resemble a homey Greek taverna, welcomed immigrants and other diners for four decades of courteous service. But it now blazes with light as a new business: The Zen Leaf Dispensary. You can eat, vape, extract and otherwise find your Zen.
Anyone who has not been to Greektown for a while is in for a shock. Pot is becoming easier to find there than baklava.
The visual main-drag prominence of the Zen Leaf operation, marketed with Greek-style lettering, has upset some neighbors and it certainly changes the character of that historic West Loop neighborhood, which has been fighting off the homogeneity of gentrification. Similarly, expansive weed operations can be found in Wrigleyville — the huge Sunnyside dispensary operates now on both sides of Clark Street — and in Andersonville. Clark Street, in fact, is becoming something of a weed superhighway. A kid leaving Wrigley Field can’t miss what is going on just outside the ballpark. Parents get questions.
Is this what Chicagoans really want?
This page has supported the legalization of recreational marijuana on the grounds that prohibition rarely works in a free society, that its criminalization led to some becoming trapped inside a legal system that only led them to more serious crimes, and that smoking a joint is probably no more harmful to the average Chicagoan than downing a couple of beers (maybe less). And we knew, of course, that Illinois was attracted to the potential influx of cash to ever-needy state coffers.
If a business is made legal, it’s hardly fair to complain about its efforts to make itself visible and attractive to customers. In these past months, the Illinois pot trade has glammed up, focused on customer service and made huge efforts to reduce any stigma attached to its core product. Any other smart business would do the same. And, clearly, the level of demand has proved to reach far beyond what we anticipated when we wrote about this topic in the past. Lockdown stressed out a whole lot of people, and pot has helped them.
But legalization took place prior to the pandemic and the consequent retail meltdown that has opened up a lot of new commercial spaces looking for tenants. Pot shops have become more visible not just by virtue of their own success but by the challenging business conditions felt by other retailers competing with home delivery and Amazon. Pot stores even have thrived as other retail has fallen apart. If we don’t pay attention, we might well see weed emporia encroaching on the struggling Magnificent Mile.
We say city officials should hold the line on not allowing weed sales in the central business district and should pay attention to the growing prominence and ubiquity of this high-margin business. Doling out a glut of licenses should be avoided.
Pot stores need not be in the face of youthful crowds leaving downtown festivals or walking out from their tourist hotels. We recognize their right to exist and, so far, there has been little evidence of the corruptionfeared with legalization, even if the way licenses have been dispensed has been chaotic and rife with complaints.
For many medical patients, legalized marijuana is a life-changing relief and access should be as easy as possible.
But for most recreational customers, getting high doesn’t solve your problems, nor does it sharpen your mind or make you more aware of the dangers that lurk all around us these days. It’s better if it’s occasionally used, when the adult smoker is in a safe place. Legal doesn’t always mean wise.
Pot shops have their legitimate place in Chicago. But they don’t need to be our flagships, nor should they be allowed to define how our city looks and acts in this long and difficult recovery.
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