Elgin’s first cannabis business will be craft grower Flora Arbor, which won Elgin City Council approval this week to open an indoor crop production facility on Abbott Drive to produce marijuana for dispensaries.
Flora Arbor was one of the first companies given an Illinois medical cannabis dispensary license in 2014, said Anthony Carpino, who represented the company at Wednesday’s council meeting.
The company is no longer in the medical dispensary business and received a craft grow license last year, Carpino said. Flora Arbor’s main investor qualified as a social equity applicant because he/she lives in an area socially impacted by drugs and is a military veteran, he said.
Under the license, the company initially can grow 5,000 square feet of cannabis and expand in phases up to a maximum of 14,000 square feet later, officials said.
City council members approved a conditional use permit that Flora Arbor needs to open the facility inside the 51,000-square-foot building at 1300 Abbott Drive. The property is located a quarter-mile east of North McLean Boulevard and abuts the Metra railroad tracks.
A city ordinance adopted in December 2019 allows businesses to produce and sell marijuana if they obtain a conditional use permit. Craft growers must be located within an industrial-zoned area while dispensaries can be located within a business district, said Marc Mylott, director of community development.
A craft grower is prohibited from having a dispensary on site, he said.
Flora Arbor is considering the possibility of opening an adult-use cannabis dispensary somewhere else, but the state licensing process is currently frozen because of a lawsuit challenging the system’s fairness to social equity applicants.
That’s one reason why Elgin hasn’t had any applications to open a cannabis dispensary in the city, Mylott said. Businesses don’t want to move forward until the case is resolved, he said.
“It’s just not, at this point, worth the risk,” Mylott said.
Once the Cook County case is decided, that situation will quickly change, city officials said.
“I can’t imagine there won’t be applicants knocking on our door. I know for a fact of one,” Councilman Steve Thoren said.
Cannabis craft grower licenses weren’t frozen by the lawsuit so there’s no restriction on those businesses moving forward with new locations, Carpino said.
Councilmember Tish Powell welcomed Flora Arbor to the city.
“It’s exciting to have you be the first cannabis business in our community,” she said. “It looks like you have a solid plan. It’s good that you have experience in this area.”
The cannabis industry has been a boon for Illinois. Last year, sales totaled $1.4 billion, more than double the amount sold in 2020, according to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Illinois legalized the sale of adult-use cannabis in 2019.
Dispensaries pay a 3% retail sales tax to local communities, something that craft growers are not charged.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
