Illinois Health and Wellness LLC, hoping to do business as Revolution Dispensary and sell cannabis was denied a Special Use permit for a second time by the Normal ZBA at its meeting on Thursday. Or was it actually still the first time? That matter isn’t exactly clear.
At the same time the ZBA approved High Haven’s application for a special use permit for a second time. After the first approval was given the matter was forwarded to the town council. But the council did not approve the permit. Since then High Haven has worked with council to find agreement. As a result High Haven submitted a second plan to the ZBA.
Revolution
ZBA initially denied Revolution a Special Use Permit at its meeting on March 16. But apparently some i’s were left undotted and t’s uncrossed. This trip by Revolution before the ZBA was dubbed a “reconsideration” because the board failed to properly provide information that needed to be forwarded to the town council at the March meeting. At Thursday’s meeting the ZBA made it clear they recommended council deny the permit because the proposed location is near a daycare center.
Victoria Mendicino, Head of Government Affairs for Revolution said, “It’s not the result that we would like to see. We are looking forward to being able to go before city council. We do feel that the code has been set forth and we meet the code requirements.
“There are a lot of considerations that go into finding a location that extend beyond setbacks that are set forth by the city zoning code including reserve mortgage or debt on the property as a landlord,” Mendicino said. “This is going to be something that they are approving of so given all of that and the available properties in the town of Normal there really aren’t any other locations that are viable.”
Revolution’s chosen sight meets setback requirements regarding proximity to day care centers. The requirement is 100 feet. Shining Star Learning Center is located across Raab Rd. 348 feet away. For reference, that is a longer distance than a football field including the end zones.
Revolution’s site is in the shopping center on Northpoint Dr. on the south side of Raab Rd. with Normal Maytag Coin Laundry and Gloria Jean’s Coffee. Shining Star is located on Trader’s Cir. behind Steak and Shake on the north side of Raab Rd.
Shining Star’s owner said, “Will this have a detriment to my business? Absolutely it will. There is no doubt about it. … It will definitely negatively impact my business. … It will hurt me. … It will hurt my business terribly.”
The ZBA agreed with Shining Star’s owner.
Mendicino hopes the council will agree with her.
High Haven
Mahja Sulemanjee Vortocek, CEO of High Haven said that since the council meeting where their application was denied, “We have done quite a bit of education for ourselves to reach out to the community and reach out to the city and to reach out to council members and to see what exactly is it that we need to do to be whole. How can we make the city council feel confident (about) what we are looking to do?”
Gabe Judd, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer for High Haven, said since the council meeting, “We looked at various other locations that the council felt we should take into consideration. Most of them were prohibitively expensive. Some of the sale prices were in excess of $1million and we would have to put almost a million into the project to make it usable.”
Judd continued, “That didn’t take into consideration that we have strict deadlines from the state as to when we have to be up and open or we lose our licenses. And we are a startup so we only have so much money to invest in these projects to get them up in time to generate revenue so that we don’t lose everything.”
Allen Yu and his brother David own the property at 106 Mall Dr. where High Haven wants to put their business. For years the Yu’s operated the Mandarin Garden restaurant at that location. They are hoping to lease the property to High Haven on a ten year lease. Dave is wanting to retire from the restaurant business and Allen would at least like to take a break.
Allen said he hasn’t taken a vacation in years of running the restaurant and his children, now in their upper teens need him. After a few years he said he might want to open another restaurant but perhaps a smaller one.
David said leasing the building would provide him with income after retirement. He mentioned that in recent years it has been difficult to find staff to run a restaurant. David feels the city council has focused too much on the recreational cannabis user and not considered the needs of medicinal users enough. He points out that medicinal cannabis users would benefit from the convenience of another store.
One person who spoke against High Haven was an employee at Chick-fil-A, He shared an anecdote saying last year he was working outside when a man came up to him asking where Beyond Hello was. Beyond Hello is an existing cannabis dispensary on Veteran’s Dr. in Bloomington. The person who spoke said the man that came up to him got in his face.
Another person that testified was concerned about high schoolers working nearby. She also said that while users might not smoke cannabis on the High Haven property they might smoke in their cars in other parking lots nearby. And she stated it was a fact that regular exposure to cannabis increases the chance that adolescents will use.
A third person said that she went by the site and people were parked in the Mandarin Garden Parking lot even though the restaurant wasn’t open. That statement was made in regard to concerns regarding High Haven having enough parking.
High Haven has revised their site plan to provide 42 parking spaces which they believe they will seldom ever need.
The High Haven application will be on the town council agenda again on May 1st.