Peoria caps cannabis dispensaries at six, reserves three licenses for social equity applicants

foreign it's 6 p.m on what is today Tuesday March 21st 2023 and I call the meeting of the Peoria city council to order um welcome to wcbu and their listening audience as well as cable channel 22.

some Clerk the council mic should be open if you would like to take the Roll Call mayor Ali council member Allen president council member seer council member grab here council member Jackson here councilmember Jensen here council member Kelly here council member Euler council member reaganbach here council member Val poula we have a quorum present okay thank you madam Clerk um a notice was received by council member rock regal of the city council in accordance with rules established in ordinance ordinance number 16 142 council member rock regal would be deemed authorized to attend the meeting electronically and less emotion to council member Rock Regal's electronic attendance is made seconded and approved by two-thirds of the members of the city council physically present at this meeting if no such motion is made and seconded then the request by council member rock regal to attend electronically shall be deemed approved by the city council and the presiding officer shall declare council member rock regal present are there any such motions okay um council member Rodrigo thank you mayor Pro tem oh you're welcome and I declare that uh council member rodrigal is present all right we're going to now please join me and we'll stand for a moment of Silent prayer and then the Pledge of Allegiance one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Madam clerk do we have any minutes to approve we do not have any minutes at this time so we are on to the regular part of the agenda it's 23-087 there's a communication from the mayor and Corporation Council with a request to approve the Declaration of local state of emergency is there a motion councilman Del Pula you move to approve I moved to approval is there a second councilman Allen okay it's that okay we'll take a vote um hang on your voting should be open and we'll go ahead and vote okay there are eight years and zero Nays oh sorry councilman Rodrigo yay okay that's nine years and zero knows that motion passes 22-293 is a communication from the city manager and Corporation Council with a request to adopt an ordinance amending Article 19 operation of a cannabis business of chapter 18 licenses and miscellaneous business regulations of the code of the city of Peoria and on your desk there are handouts with a presentation and supporting documentation thank you madam clerk um unless I there's something from the members of the council I'll go ahead and turn this over to the city manager and then assistant Corporation Council uh thank you mayor Pro tem we have a slide deck we put together to try and frame the discussion for this evening uh really there's I think two areas of the ordinance that we want to look at the first being kind of the zoning questions and then the second part being the business license your questions pertaining to cannabis so I'm going to turn it over to our Deputy Corporation Council Christy kaputska to walk through the presentation and to lead the dialogue okay sounds good Mr city manager thank you madam mayor Pro tem so to sort of help frame the issue because we've been discussing some of these for many months now back in September councilman Allen asked the legal staff to take a look at the Cannabis ordinance specifically in regards to our treatment of social Equity licenses and social Equity applicants at the time we knew that new licenses were going to come on board we also knew that they were all going to be social Equity licenses we then at council's request held three public meetings in October and November we also had an online survey done where briefly the results of those surveys showed that the community members that responded to those surveys did not want to see a cap on the number of licenses they did not want to see any additional zoning or distance restrictions they did want to see on-site consumption and they did want to see the council address social Equity so we proposed some changes to the business license ordinance that we have been discussing and revising just about monthly since then the initial draft of the ordinance did largely reflect that input from the community and then since then we've struggled a little bit to get consensus or maybe a clear Direction on how the council wanted to treat on-site consumption and then really whether or not we wanted to see a cap on the number of licenses so tonight is the city manager said we put together just some brief slides to try to give an overview of where we're at with the licenses try to describe the best we can what happened with all the licenses issued in 2022 show both in a chart form and in a map what we think potential dispensaries could look like here in Peoria talk briefly about what comparable municipalities are doing and then some of the draft coordinates changes So currently Trinity Compassionate Care Centers operates two facilities in Peoria and you've heard me say this repeatedly that in 2020 when those initial licenses rolled out the state rolled them out by BLS region and for us that includes Peoria County Woodford County Stark tazwell and Marshall counties so outside of Peoria the only other dispensaries in our BLS region are one in East Peoria and one in Pekin so we have three other counties in our BLS region that have no cannabis facilities or dispensaries in them in 2022 after a couple years of litigation the state rolled out nine licenses for our BLS region and I realized that's a little hard to see on the slide so hopefully it's slightly easier to see on council's handout the date there is interesting because the state regulation says that those facilities have to be up and running within 180 days now there are some exceptions to that and I'll talk about that but generally 180 days is where they want to see those locations so in 2022 the state rolled out a total of 192 licenses councilman Allen asked me today how many of those actually opened and after doing some research we've determined that as of the end of February of the 192 new licenses issued in 2022 only eight additional new facilities have opened out of that 192.

um we know that in 2023 the state anticipates issuing an additional 55 social Equity licenses that deadline I believe was March 1st or March 10th in order for those to be submitted and by the statute it indicates that our BLS region could receive one more license in addition to the nine that were rolled out last year however as I've mentioned multiple times giving you an exact number of dispensaries that could locate here is a bit of a moving Target because of how the statute was rolled out the statute had early approval licenses So for anybody that had a medical cannabis facility they could also get an early approval license those facilities could also get a secondary site license then the state told us they were going to roll out 75 conditional adult use licenses in 2020 of which our BLS region would get three then there was supposed to be a lottery for 55 more licenses then there were this supposed to be the social Equity Lottery of which our BLS region could have gotten two more we know that the litigation in 2020 and in 2021 and 2022 largely made it really hard to determine how many licenses were going to be issued out of the social Equity lotteries and then on January 1st of 2022 the state had a new regulation that said well you can kind of throw out all those numbers because we can change any of those that we want to for BLS region based on things such as travel times or wait times populations of certain areas or any other factor that they determined relevant so I can give you the total number that's listed in the statute as far as how many should be coming to the Peoria BLS region but I can tell you that really doesn't translate to much these days because we know that it can change so when you look at this particular chart this does not include the two Trinity facilities but it does include the nine facilities where state licenses were issued for our BLS region in 2022 you'll also see at the very bottom it includes the company called 2018 DT South Beloit who in January of 2022 came and got a special use permit from the city however they are not on the list of licenses from the state of Illinois that does not mean however that that special use permit is null and void it means that the company with the special use permit could certainly associate with one of these other state licensees in order to open but that company itself does not have a special use permit so when you go down the list of that nine we have three where the council has approved special use permits one at 7628 West Route 91 that one is for Northern Cardinal Ventures we have 12 10 West Glenn which is exotic strains LLC and then we have 3929 war memorial which is world of weed I will tell you that of those three that have special use permits none of them have applied for a city business license at this point we do require the business license for cannabis all three of those have submitted building permit applications two are currently under review one has been approved however the permit has not been issued because the building permit fees have not been paid at least as of yesterday when we checked um so trying to narrow it down a little further because I suspected that we would want to see what this will look like based on council districts we did include a slide to show you where all of them are based on council districts we also put all of those potential locations on a map which I realized is extremely difficult to see on the screen so there is a full-size map with the material on your desk that I think will let you better see the disbursement of those locations throughout the city one of the things that the council asked us to look into was how other communities were really handling these regulations and not surprisingly it's really a bit of across it's all across the board when we looked at how other communities were handling these things we looked at the 15 most populated cities outside of Chicago and looked at things like the maximum number of dispensaries whether or not they allowed other cannabis businesses distances that they required between sensitive areas distances between cannabis businesses and then whether or not on-site consumption was authorized as far as a cap or a limit on the number of dispensaries it went from zero with the village of Cicero who does not allow any cannabis consumption or any cannabis sales to a maximum of five in Schaumburg and for reference I broke that down by population just so I could get an idea of how many cannabis dispensaries they had based on their most recent population and that breaks down to about one cannabis dispensary per every fourteen thousand residents um as far as the maximum number of other cannabis businesses interesting that two of the communities allowed dispensaries but Bloomington and Naperville prohibited all other cannabis-based businesses for the distances to sensitive areas those restrictions ranged anywhere from 500 to a thousand feet Peoria's current license says 500 feet and for reference we had previously talked about distance for alcohol establishments to those same areas and our license only requires 100 foot distance and for tobacco we require a 350 foot difference you will see there that one of the communities in Springfield Alters there's a little bit based on what zoning District so the more residential zoning you see the more restrictive they get about those distances as far as distances between cannabis-based businesses most of them had either not addressed it and therefore it defaulted to the statutory 1500 foot distance or had something slightly higher than that you will see that Naperville actually set theirs at based on my math what amounts to one mile rather than 1500 feet and councilman rigenbach asked me earlier today for a visual on how much 1500 feet was I think it's about five football fields or when we measured it on the gis map from the front door of City Hall to the parking lot of the Riverfront Museum it's about 1500.

that was a great question because I hadn't hadn't thought about it visually before that all of the communities prohibit on-site consumption now keep in mind that on-site consumption is prohibited in the statute unless it is specifically authorized so even if it's not addressed it is prohibited and then only two of the communities have actually specifically addressed social equity in their ordinances Aurora has a cap of four licenses and reserves two of those for social Equity applicants and then bullying Brook provides a discounted licensing fee for theirs again we saw a very wide range of regulations some communities got very specific into building requirement requirements and on the other end some communities did no more than adopt the tax for it one area where the council has been clear and we believe that we've received you know clear Direction and a consensus on is changes you would like to see in Zoni nortez so Leah Allison has drafted a zone adornance that we would propose to put to the Planning and Zoning commission once we make sure that we're all on we have all the right information and you don't want anything else added to it and that ordinance would do two things it would reduce the time that a special permit is valid from two years to six months and in addition it would require um special use permits for cannabis-based businesses in all zoning districts compared to now where they're allowed in industrial districts prohibited informed districts and then a special use permit in all other districts where we would appreciate some more feedback from the council is how you would like to deal with the five main points of the business license ordinance how we want to address social Equity applicants do you want to increase the distance limitation would you like to see a limitation on the license transfer would you like to prohibit on-site consumption or on the alternative would you like to allow on-site consumption and then do you want to set a maximum number of dispensary licenses that the city will issue at any one time so uh out of mirror Pro tem we can do this at your pleasure we have the slide set up so that if you want me to address the ordinance in those spot you know in that order by those five pieces we can do that or if you'd like me to finish the presentation and then you want to start your discussion it's your pleasure I think it's okay if you want to finish and then we'll open it up to questions okay um one of those elements that we're asking to be amended in the ordinance is including a definition of social Equity you've seen this in all the versions of the ordinance it's in your handout it is verbatim from the state statute one thing that we are asking for that perhaps we didn't see in other communities ordinance was that those who qualify as social Equity applicants provide the city proof of status we don't want to be a burden on that applicant however so we're asking for what's called exhibit P that is attached to their state license and it does show their status as a social Equity applicants that they're required to denial I believe annually or biannually they would also be required to provide that with the city as far as a distance limitation is concerned we did not in the original ordinance include one by default the state statute would apply which is 1500 feet but we are recommending that you consider inserting a specific distance limitation that is verbatim to the state statute mainly because we have multiple social Equity applicants that are all going to perhaps attempt to cite at the same time and we want to make sure that we are clear that that 1500 on how that 1500 foot distance limitation would go into effect I think another issue that's gusts is the limitation on license transfer and you've heard me mention before that something unique to cannabis-based businesses are perhaps how they buy and sell the companies and you do see the use of membership purchase agreements rather than maybe straight asset sales that you would see in other businesses so we would like the limitation on license transfers to include things such as a membership purchase agreement so if that were to occur that company would have to come to the city for a new cannabis license at that time when we did the community survey the community did have a majority of responders to the survey in favor of on-site consumption that did not appear to be necessarily the consensus from the council and there was some direction to include some language about prohibiting on-site consumption again even if you would not include this language on-site consumption cannot occur until it is specifically authorized and then the last piece is really if the council wants to Institute a cap on the number of licenses where you would fall on that so that initial number 11 that we put in the ordinance for discussion purposes really came from adding up all those potential licenses that we know have been issued or are available generally in our BLS region after doing some more research though we can tell you there were some interesting statistics that we were able to find one is that we wanted to make sure when we initially said perhaps consider including all 11 was that since we knew that social Equity applicant or social Equity licenses were the only available licenses out there out there right now we weren't proposing something that would have a discriminatory effect on those license holders well the most recent data indicates that of those 192 licenses only 40 percent of those companies are actually owned and operated by a minority business meaning a majority of those are not minority held and also of again as I said the 192 licenses issued last year only a small a very small percentage of those have opened up so earlier I pointed out a statistic about Schomburg having one in 14 000 when they selected their cap on licenses so trying to understand if we were going to tie a license limitation to a population base what would be reasonable we were actually able to find a commission on government forecasting and accountability monthly briefing from January of 2022 and ironically Senator Dave kaler was the co-chair at the time when this report came out that said that based on Illinois's current licenses we're at about one per dispensary for every 115 000 people in Illinois but they were looking at how to get to somewhere between one dispensary for every 13 000 to 23 000 people because that was of all the states that they looked at and that was Oregon Washington Colorado Massachusetts Michigan Nevada and California generally where those averages fell now there were some outliers Oregon for example had one dispensary for every 4 400 people and then Illinois really was at the top into that range for having one person for every hundred and fifteen thousand so we do think that if the state increased the licenses to 192 which we know isn't going to be quite likely that would drop our Statewide statistic to one dispensary for every 66 000 people but again that's still higher than the range the state it seems to be striving for at least based on the data we could find from this this kogba study that came out or this console monthly report I should say that came out last year in January Nationwide we also looked a little bit at some statistical data to determine how many dispensaries are out there for every hundred thousand of the state's population Oregon came in at the highest at 16.5 Oklahoma came in at 15.6 Montana was at 15.

Colorado was at 14.1 Alaska was at 12.7 Washington was at 6.2 and then again LM it drops all the way down to Illinois being at about one for 115 000.

so with that I am happy to take uh any questions or I can rearrange the slides if it would help the discussion okay thank you there any council members with questions uh councilman rigenbach thank you madam mayor portam um and thank you um assistant Corporation Council for the comprehensive recap of a topic that we're all so familiar with but I'm continually need to be refreshed on if I could make just one suggestion um Madame Pro tem sir um as as we look at the draft ordinance changes I think several of these will be pretty pretty well accepted and the way I I read this in discussions I've been having that seems like the number of dispensaries is probably the greatest so would it be appropriate to separate the issue perhaps and can we can we agree that changing the special use permit to six months versus two years to require special use in all zoning districts that we we all agree on if we all agree on those that we can give some definitive Direction tonight rather than end up in a quandary again the the social Equity applicant definition and Status going in line with the state seems like a logical thing for us to do as well memorializing our distance limitation to 1500 feet the limitation on license transfers again putting this in line with the state and prohibiting on-site consumption I think was something a lot of us agreed on I think there was a consensus last time so would would it be appropriate to throw those out there and then come back to the limitation of dispensaries separately sure we can go through each one so um the first one I think is the definition of social equity um so there's the two on the previous page also the draft the on page five those oh I'm sorry okay so I guess the the first proposed change that um we'll discuss then is the special use permit being changed that instead of it being valid for two years it would be valid for only six months which is something that we've discussed a few times when we've had this on the agenda is there anybody on the council who disagrees with that has a comment has a question about it okay so it looks to me as I look around the Horseshoe everyone seems to be in agreement with that proposed change councilman rock regal or do you agree with that I do agree with that okay so that one's easy then we'll go on to the next one which is um requiring a special use permit for someone to get a license in all zoning districts currently it's only allowed in industrial and Commercial is that correct Corporation Council it is loud and Industrial it is a special use in any commercial District so right now it's only permitted with the special use permit in an industrial district or a commercial District correct use in industrial districts okay and your proposed staff is proposing to change that to allow it in all zoning districts with the special use permit correct it would still be prohibited in the form districts but it would make any it would make it a special use permit in the industrial districts okay so so I hear I see um deputy director Allison may have something to say on that okay go ahead if I can just help clarify as um Chrissy mentioned it's currently a permitted use only in the Industrials one two and three and then it's currently a special use in the commercial distance which is your B1 your C1 your C2 cnncg the proposed change would only really impact the Industrial districts to change from permitted to special use so that would be uniform special use requirement from commercial through the industrial no other change to any other District does that help clarify if that's yeah that's very helpful okay and would that help I imagine staff with keeping track I guess and administering the program okay with that Clarity is there anyone around the Horseshoe that disagrees with that proposal it looks like everyone nag your head yes okay or a thumbs up okay looks like all members present agree with that except councilman Kelly I didn't see it sorry I did see councilman Kelly and I called him so hang on and then I'll let you go councilman grab uh thank you madam mayor um I would just like to pass on that uh uh uh councilman Seer is in favor of this change as well okay thank you councilman grab um assistant director no permitted use in a form-based district can you tell us where those are in the city so the form we have four form-based districts we have the warehouse District Prospect District Sheridan triangle and Main Street warm District so they would still not be permitted there correct thank you and just as a on that same topic and they're not permitted in any residential district correct correct and we're not changing that as a proposal okay thank you um anyone else have a comment or question councilman rock regal what's your view on that proposed change Madam mayor Pro Cam I am I am good with that Provost change okay so that's good we've got clear Direction on two of the proposals um the next one is the proposed definition of social equity I believe it is anyone around the horse you have a question about that proposed definition as anybody is everybody comfortable and um supportive of that proposed change councilman ruckriegel I am as well I'm supportive of it as well okay so it it looks like the entire Council present as well as rock regal agree with that change councilman Kelly uh just for clarity perhaps only for my clarity uh the definition that we're using is the state's definition correct okay thank you you're welcome okay then we'll move on to the next proposed change which is to require social Equity applicants to prove their status that they are a social Equity applicant anyone have any questions about that proposed change councilman rodrigle do you have any questions I'm good I had no questions and I'm supportive of that change as well okay is there anyone that objects or has concerns about that proposed change okay it looks like you've got unanimous Direction on that one as well okay that brings us I think to the distance limitation um the staff is proposing to um change it I think currently we do we have a limitation no currently we're silent so we would default to the state which is similar it's 1500 feet and you're just proposing that we codify that into our ordinance correct correct uh we don't know if the state would ever change that just implementation so we would like to see one inserted into our local ordinance okay um councilwoman Jackson do you have a question okay is there any discussion on this item I'm looking around councilman ruckriegel do you have any questions about that proposal no and I would be supportive as well okay I I do have a question about that one um with regards to the exception for the social Equity applicant I know we've had some discussion about this before I would rather have that 1500 feet limit apply to all applicants so is it required that we have that caveat and that exception for social Equity applicants or not if we don't have uh anything in our ordinance that would be the standard language because that distance limitation language is taken verbatim from the statute you could require that 1500 feet to apply to social Equity applicants just as if you could prohibit cannabis-based businesses in the city altogether and that that I would prefer to do it that way I just have always said I would like as much space between these as possible and would not I don't want the city to be saturated with them so I would prefer that it apply to all applicants myself councilman rigenbach thank you madam mayor pretemp I think this might be the window of opportunity to codify that as well because there's no um applicants that would be less than that right now so we can make the playing field level going forward and make sure that all future applicants are aware of that so so you agree with that agree with you okay um I'm not sure who who who who asked first but councilman Euler go ahead thank you madam chairwoman I agree with the change as well with the exception or no exception at 1500 feet regardless so for all applicants correct okay so without an exception okay councilman Allen uh thank you madam mayor Pro Tim I would have to respectfully disagree um weird looks like we're going to be heading to some type of limit on these dispensaries and so I don't think we're going to have to worry about them uh condensing in a particular area but I think when it comes to the social Equity designation the whole purpose is to provide opportunities and additional help to those who get this designation we just had a presentation that those who are even getting this destination are struggling to even open up and so if we can eliminate barriers by providing um an exception from them to be a little bit less in my open up additional uh venue opportunities for them so I would have to respectfully disagree okay um councilman valpulla Madam chairman I I actually would like to support what the councilman Zach Weiler said I understand that there is a social Equity component in this one but then um I I believe that the court is Court should be code for everybody regardless of who comes in because we don't want to change it I understand the concern raised by councilman Allen but again I believe that you know we need to have a unified code going forward thank you madam thank you um is there a motion somebody want to make a motion since I'm the chair I can't make a motion councilman rickenback um to adopt the distance limitation of 1500 square feet for all applicants and there's a second basic or councilman Euler Is there further discussion on that uh councilman ruckriegel do you have any comments uh no comments I'll just be ready to vote when you call for the vote okay I guess is it I just want to check with Corporation Council due to the um it not being a policy session is it appropriate for us to go ahead and have made that motion and then vote on it oh I'm sorry there you go it's hard to hear me without them yes I apologize so uh we're going to come back with an amended ordinance in any regard and but because there's a division it would be helpful to give direction by votes so we know what that is okay we're not passing just to be clear we're not passing an ordinance or giving direction okay and so to now it's all been unanimous so it's easy for us to figure out um and from the comments it's clear that here we've got divided divided so I think it'd be good to make a motion that we'd prepare an ordinance consistent with the direction and that way we have the clarity of the vote to base that on thank you okay thank you so I believe we have a motion on the floor to direct staff to create a distance limitation of 1500 feet for all applications all applicants without an exception okay so we'll go ahead if there's no further discussion oh I'm sorry councilman Allen has another um point uh thank you madam mayor Pro tem and uh just to clarify I don't want to see marijuana Row in Peoria Illinois by no means but again if we are truly trying to Foster equity in this space we need to be have foresight of removing different barriers and so we know that there's going to be challenges for minorities and women-owned businesses to enter the space having access to Capital having access to other different funding mechanisms and so we need to have a foresight of that so that's why I will be voting no but by no means do I want to see a conglomerate of dispensaries on a particular Street I definitely don't foresee that happening with this language being in there thank you thank you if there's no further discussion we'll go ahead and vote all the motion again do you want to repeat it uh clerk Tower do you want to repeat it do you let's see to adopt 1500 feet for all applicants across the board is that correct yes okay um please cast your ballots uh councilman ruckriegel hi okay it looks like the motion passes with uh seven yes is one no but councilman grab you didn't vote Mr Peterson oh okay there I see it Okay so we've got seven yeses eight yeses with councilman rodrigal and one no so that motion carries okay so that brings us to the next uh uh sorry Mr Yorick it it we have one item we need to clarify um councilman Graham had asked a question about form districts there is one exception I don't know if we'll ask Leah Allison to come forward okay just clarify it has to pertains to the warehouse District thank you go ahead um thank you and I apologize I um answered your question with I need to add a caveat the warehouse District uh Frontage specifically for Commerce does currently allow the opportunity for cannabis dispensaries so I apologize the rest do not we do need to make some um amendments to make that very clear but a question for you would you like us to also make an amendment to the warehouse District to prohibit the cannabis dispensary which currently would be allowed has written councilman grab yes the warehouse district is a residential area and what's good for the goose is good for the gander and it's becoming increasingly residential so what I'm hearing from you is that you would support adding the warehouse District to the districts that prohibit cannabis dispensaries is that emotion councilman grab is that emotion yes that's great okay and we have a second is there any discussion uh councilman rigenbach thank you again you're welcome I'll I'll support this direction but I want it to be clear for those stakeholders in the warehouse District to realize this will go to the planning zone and commission before it comes back to the council for a final vote just the only reason I point that out is because we have not talked about that aspect of the zoning change previously to my knowledge so I just want to make sure that if there are people who have differing views that they know they will have an opportunity to express those before the final vote by this Council down the road okay I guess I'm I was under the impression this was not going back to the zoning Commission yet been at the Planning and Zoning Commission well before oh so you the plan is to take this to the go ahead um city manager thank you mayor Pro tem the the the zoning ordinance changes do have to go back in front of the Planning and Zoning commission to get their approval and then come back to council for your final approve okay is there time to do that before the first week of May uh so this action would be on the next available May agenda for the Planning and Zoning commission and then the third or I'm sorry the fourth Tuesday of May is when it would be on schedule for your consideration the the business licensure piece can be separate from this and you know that could be acted on if counsel so desires if you want to take that section forward that doesn't require going back to the Planning and Zoning commission and that part does that include the limit on the numbers or is that the zone that would include the limitations which you'll be talking about here in just a couple minutes yes okay okay so the only way it would go to the zoning commission beforehand is if they were to have a special meeting when is their meeting normally scheduled they're the first Thursday of every month so there isn't time to put it on the agenda for the April meeting correct our legal notice requirement is actually tomorrow with a two-day pre-lead up to with the Journal Star so unfortunately we would not be able to make the legal notice publication course tomorrow's deadline okay which would be for the April meeting that's why I'm refer to the May meeting okay thank you but everything but the zoning changes can come back to us before that okay apologize for that clarification thank you for that clarification I think we still have a motion on the floor to um add the warehouse District as the district that prohibits cannabis dispensaries is there any other discussion or questions about that councilman Rodrigo no questions or comments okay seeing that there's no other questions or discussion we'll go ahead and vote um clerk tar do you want to read back the motion the motion made by council member grab and seconded by council member Euler was to prohibit cannabis in the warehouse districts okay it looks like um everyone's voted councilman Rec Regal okay the motion passes with eight years and zero Nays all right now we're going on to the next proposal before we go to the okay the for the next proposal is to put a limitation on the transfer of the license which is on page eight which is up on the screen is there any motion or discussion about this item is there anybody on the council that disagrees with that proposal councilman grab manager or counselor kabuska tell us what that means the existing business license ordinance already has all the language you see up on the screen about limiting the license transfer what this would do set is if a company decides not to outright sell all the assets but yet they're selling purchase agreements or sort of shares perhaps membership shares of a company when those start to change it would trigger them having to get a new business license from the city so does that mean there could be slate at hand occurring if we don't approve this there is certainly sleight of hand occurring throughout the industry now yes wow so that's why we need to prove this okay councilman Allen thank you madam mayor Pro Tim Deputy Corporation kapusca can you also talk about how incorporating this language would prohibit those who have the special Equity designation to transfer that or lack thereof be able to do that it may directly impact anyone with a social Equity license it would depend on how they were trying to sell perhaps the company that they had Incorporated um one of the issues that we will see not necessarily now but perhaps five years from now with any of our social Equity licenses is that the state statute has a provision that after five years anyone who was awarded a social Equity license can in effect sell that license or transfer that license by paying the fee that they would have paid if they weren't a social Equity license holder to the state of Illinois in effect making the state whole for the discount they were given on their license so if for example the city were to designate as Aurora does a certain number of licenses as social Equity licenses it will be interesting to see what would occur five years from now if you know perhaps bigger cannabis corporations as we see happening in other states attempt to buy the social Equity licenses or those smaller companies if in fact a Prohibition like this would help them maybe stay in business or if they would be approaching the council asking for that restriction to be removed so that they could in effect sell the company or the business they'd built thank you that is definitely something that we want to keep our eye on for the forecast because we know we will have some participants who are going to use minorities and women and things of that nature in order to obtain this designation and we do not want to have that happen in our city thank you any other comments or discussion councilman Rick Regal do you have any comments or questions no hey is there a motion pardon I think it looks like it's unanimous but would you prefer to have a motion okay oh Madam mayor yes yes councilman yes I I meant no on questions um I am a gay if as the vote goes forward for this okay that's what I think we all thought but thank you for that clarification thank you we'll move on to um the proposal to prohibit on-site consumption I believe we've had some discussion as a council on this issue before is there anyone on the council who wants to make a comment has a question about prohibiting on-site consumption is there anybody councilman Allen uh thank you madam mayor Pro tem I know that there is um some interest in on-site consumption within the city of Peoria um personally I would like us to see us revisit this a few years down the line I think that as we are opening more dispensaries in the area we'll be able to see what impact that this is truly having on our city both positively and negatively and then we'll be able to make a better informed decision if we want to entertain on-site consumption but at this time I'm feeling that we're not ready for that thank you thank you councilman Allen is there anybody that disagrees with this proposal councilman ruckriegel do you have any comments or position on this proposal at this time okay so I believe you have it looks like everyone around the Horseshoe including me um agree with that prohibition and that proposal okay we get to the last proposal which I believe will have some discussion um the staff is proposed to put a limit of the number of licenses to no more than 11.

dispensaries throughout the city is there anybody that has any comments on this questions or other proposals councilman grab well how did we come up with 11.

councilman I think we originally proposed excuse me proposed 11 because that included all nine of the social Equity licenses that were issued in 2022 plus the two existing licenses for Trinity so okay that's how we came up with the letter thank you uh sorry city manager yurich thank you mayor Pro tem uh one other point if if we were to follow and model what Schomburg did which was roughly 14 000 residents per license we would be closer to eight so it might be a smaller number than what we currently have and and I think as we've talked about there's at least five one expired special use in the city currently as we speak so just just to put that out there is one thought of what one other community has done um one question I have about the numbers that we have right now at one of your slides had how many are issued how many um it doesn't have the date when those special use permits were approved so if we adopt the sixth month limitation first part of my question would that apply to them to those that already have a special use and if not if or if not what do you know the dates when they were issued and when those licenses will be expired or those permits thank you I thought I heard Leah behind me um I don't think the intent was to make that six-month period retroactively and with the zoning ordinance we had also discussed perhaps the need to include some additional language about administratively if that could be extended for a short amount of time knowing that sometimes the the process with the state although they're required to be up and running are supposed to be up and running within 180 days the state also allows them to get a 180 day extension on their license so when that license is initially issued they're told they have 180 days to be open to have located and shown what they call concrete attempts to secure a location if they can't do that and they have a hardship the state will extend that conditional license for an additional 180 days so staff had contemplated whether or not we needed to give um perhaps the city a manager some authority to extend past that six-month period the time frame for those six-month special uses if for example they were asking for a hardship from the straight because maybe they can't locate a contractor maybe they're having a supply chain issue and their product won't be in the store for another 60 days those types of issues so I guess my quest so the two-year limitation then would apply to the ones that have already had approval yes yes do you have the dates when those were approved or when they will expire off the top of my head I don't have the dates but I believe they've all been issued within the last three to four months and maybe Leah has so um the seven the the 7628 West Route 91 I believe was approved in December of 2022 just that that a few months ago and then 1210 West Glenn and the 39 29 or more I think were approved the first part of this year within the handful of months so they are fairly recent and would have that two-year time frame taking okay thank you um councilman Euler sure thank you madam chairwoman um this seems to be the sticking point that has held this up for months and months and months and I'm not really sure how we're going to get there if we don't start picking some numbers and so I guess my personal feeling here is that we've approved six so far and that's the number I think we should keep it at at least past the point of them being open and functional and seeing what this looks like for the future so I would make a motion that we kept it at six there's been a motion to cap or limit the number of dispensaries throughout the city to six is there a second councilman Kelly seconds that motion okay we have a motion on the floor and discussion I know councilman Allen you had your light on do you want to speak to this motion oops sorry uh thank you madam mayor Pro Tim I was in the neighborhood of six to eight so uh councilman Euler we're in the same neighborhood I'm a little reluctant to say six um because looking at what we have on the board right now I'm leaning towards seven so it's more than that halfway point to our eligible BLS which is 11.

um I think she gives us a little wiggle room because once we put a cap on it it may be hard to come back you know so I was kind of in the neighborhood of six to eight and so um I'm a little nervous of having it just at six you know because what I was thinking of is also too um I would like us to adopt the model that Aurora did and have um some of our licenses um with the social Equity designation so if we were to do seven four of those would be social Equity designations and then three of those would be regular applicants um or if we did eight you know five would be social equity and three would be uh regular applicants so that was kind of what my mindset was thank you welcome uh councilman rickenback thank you um Corporation Council the Brandywine one refresh I know we you talked about that earlier but what's the status of that now that it's South Beloit and I have three that company asked for a special use in February however does not currently have a license from the state of Illinois they could associate with somebody who does currently have a license in the state of Illinois but that company itself was not on the list of licensees that were awarded last year it was not correct and originally that was a social Equity applicant wasn't it it was only for a special use permit and so I don't recall if that's how they identified them on the the zoning permit at the time they applied I don't believe there were any licenses available for social um Equity status although that could have certainly been the intent so so when we say we have six in the works we have two existing three that have been approved recently that appear to be in the works and then the the sixth one is kind of in limbo I I like councilman Allen's point about um having a designation for social equity and in that case I I think I like having an odd number of seven because if we if we want four to be social equity we don't want all of our open slots to necessarily be reserved in that regard so I think I I let me just say I I like the seven and four concept I think that that always gives us the ability to deny special use that doesn't require us to fulfill them um but that gives us a little flexibility as we see how this whole thing plays out and um there certainly seems to be a lot of variables whether coming from the state or even even within so I I like the idea councilman Euler but I I think if we want to have some reserve for social Equity I would prefer to go with seven total with four for social equity thank you councilman Graham well I think we have to um get a handle on 1210 West Glenn I think this is going to be now the third time I've asked for status on that is that one that can go forward in spite of the letter that the council and legal received from the shopping center people thank you councilman the season this letter that was issued to the proprietor at 1210 West Glenn is a private real estate Covenant issue and for perspective when the location on Route 91 was attempting to cite very very similar language was raised by businesses that also had similar covenants it's my understanding that the The Entity that originally issued that cease and desist letter has indicated they will take no further action on this matter when did that happen I was informed of that today can you clear repeat that who who's not taking any further action the applicant or the I believe it was Schnucks that had originally issued the seasoned assist letter and information was provided today that not directly from Schnucks but information was provided today that we don't believe that they are going to take any further action if they are however that is a private matter of enforcing real estate covenants between those two businesses but it does affect our number discussion but according to what a Corporation Council is saying it's probably it could go forward it doesn't look like Schnucks is going to prohibit them I heard what she said okay I just wanted I heard I can hear my hearing is fine I heard exactly what she said okay I heard exactly what she said but this has been hanging out there for some time and if we're here trying to count numbers and so on and debating Euler's Motion versus some other more generous notion thinking we're doing somebody favor or some group some social group a favor we need to have some ideas to whether or not this thing's even gonna go and as of today this is the first time hearing of the status of 1210 West Glenn the first time hearing of it and yet we're making all these weighty decisions concerning cannabis and how many of these we're going to have and how many feet apart who's going to benefit and who isn't going to benefit no one's going to benefit but let's just go ahead and play the game and act like we're doing something beneficent for our population I'm glad you knew what the status was of that because I didn't until just now thank you councilman valpulla just a gratification question so off let's say now we are we're from 11 we came to six and then we moved to seven so out of these seven how many of them are social Equity applicants and how many of them are not you know that no Clarity a limitation on the number of licenses would not be a limitation on the number of special use permits that the council could issue so if we're talking about state licenses everybody on that slide is a social Equity application but we don't know the status of the facility on Brandywine because they just have zoning permission that company itself does not have a state license thank you the reason why I I asked you is I just wanted to know how many of them because we are now dividing the slots based on the people who are going to apply and I don't I don't support such kind of things because you know it should be the same social Equity will have for and the normal people or general people will have four we don't meet their reservations here so I would actually go with uh what is what is feasible and what is acceptable but I I in let's say if everybody decides seven that's seven eight it's eight but then we don't want to distinguish saying that seven would be or out of seven four would be social Equity or five would be social Equity all the seven could be social equities we never know that's that's what it is here so so that's what I before I make a decision I just wanted to learn your thoughts on that thank you so don't see any lights I'm going to make a quick comment I support even a lower limit I think I think seven is too many for the city I think even six is pushing it I understand councilman Euler may have made that motion based on the current applications or permits that have been issued but I think based on the size of our city I think six and seven is too many I would go with I think it should be three to five I mean if you look at this list most of the cities that aren't that much smaller than us only allow two or three and I I think six or seven and definitely eight is too many in my book um so I guess for what it's worth I just I just think that that's too many I've always been concerned about the city getting over saturated and having too many um dispense reason that we don't have the population to we certainly don't have the population to support 11 and I question whether we have enough to support seven and with regards to the uh I'm not opposed to reserving some of the spots for social Equity but I think if the limit was seven I think four is too many I don't think they should be the majority of the number if we go with six I would support reserving half for social equity so that's where I am councilman ruckriegel did you have some did you want to make some comments thank you madam mayor program and uh actually you summed up a lot of what I was thinking is um right now um in my mind six is a good number to set the current limit the future time the future date as we sort of um progress in the process conversations can always be had to be able to uh raise that but and and I could also hear um the the evidence for maybe a lower number but I think six at this point I can support one question for our uh our legal counsel is is there any Community which on the social Equity applicants something to be either from the Locale the vicinity the region of the state uh and do we have a breakdown of the social applicants where they're coming from are they coming from one part of the state are they coming from all over the state and I guess I asked that to make sure that we're actually considering our fellow community members in this pool as well thank you councilman that's a really good question I believe in our uh last Council packet we provided a list of all 192 social Equity licenses that were issued in uh last year and so you can see the breakdown it the goal for the state was to disperse them sort of based on population throughout the state so based on population there is a you know what the state would say is a fair and equitable distribution of those licenses um most communities in you know not unlike what we're doing here because those licenses just rolled out in the last six months of last year except for what we saw in Aurora and what we saw in Bolingbrook with the cost have not yet put any more specific limitations in place um so I the simple answer is no except for the two we cited we're not aware of any other uh regulations but we won't be surprised if we see all other communities doing exactly what we're doing and that's trying to tackle how we handle this rollout of 192 licenses great thank you no more questions thank you councilman Rick rigel just to follow up on his question so I have that handout here it looks like then there were one two three nine issued for um the Peoria area for rbls region yes okay so there's only really the potential for at least before the new ones get issued for nine more to apply is that right no that nine on the list that you have are the nine that we have listed in this song oh okay so are there any there aren't any more that have been issued by the state no in 2023 we believe they're going to issue 55 more all social Equity licenses that deadline was the beginning of March and one of those is slated to go to the Peoria BLS region so right with with that that means there's only a possibility of 10.

based on what we know today yes okay thank you councilman Allen uh thank you madam mayor Pro tem um if we do land at six I'd strongly encourage us to um designate at least half of those for the social Equity designation um I think in a perfect world it would be great to say everyone will have an equal opportunity to obtain a license but the whole one of the reasons why it was legalized in the first place to ensure that those who have been impacted the most had an opportunity to participate in the Commerce of it Corporation Deputy Corporation kapooska has shared some alarming data that currently that is not the case we know that there are barriers when it comes to acquiring funding especially because it's still illegal federally and so those minorities and I think and other demographics who want to participate are having hard times acquiring the capital and they're having these different barriers so we do need to have some licenses designated for them to ensure entry of participation thank you thank you councilman valpulla nothing much I just wanted to support what councilman Allen said it's fair to have you know some reservations but not that's the the earlier my earlier point was not to not to distinguish these things you have to have four and three but now since we are going to cap it I support what you say thank you is there any further discussion we have a motion on the floor for a limitation of six licenses any other discussion councilman ruckriegel do you have anything else to add no thank you for asking okay you're welcome we're go ahead then and cast our ballots councilman Rodrigo hi okay looks like the motion Perry carries with seven yeses and two no's do we have any other proposals or is does somebody want to make a motion regarding that social Equity cap that's been discussed here um did you want to say something Corporation Council go ahead don't mind please go ahead think staff has expressed this as a reserve for social Equity applicants and not a cap and I want to be make certain that our direction is clear tonight right now I think all of the state licenses that are outstanding have all been issued to social Equity applicants the only pool that's possible whether we no matter where we set our limit right now of new entrants would be social Equity applicants there aren't any of nobody else is licensed by the state right now I think everything that's on our list other than Trinity right is social our social Equity applicants we set a limit is what I'm saying is or whatever that's a reserve and wouldn't limit social Equity applicants to any of the opportunities they could all be social Equity I just want to make sure that we know we're not capping social Equity applicants and I wouldn't recommend that um because I think that creates a lot of tension I think it's an opportunity we're going to reserve and not a limitation as to that quotient thank you good point um to somebody when I make a motion about reserving at least three um licenses for social Equity or another number pardon right but if you don't reserve it then there's no guarantee later on if the applicants later on if no if all of those that are out there pending do not apply for a license and then some others come forward and apply there's no requirement that they have to be social Equity if the council reserves spots then at least one two three whatever number the council decides would be reserved for social Equity applicants I think that's all counts all Corporation Council was saying is not to use the word cap to use the word Reserve so we'd be reserving at least a certain number of spots for social Equity applicants I see councilman Allen has his late councilman Allen I'd like to make a motion that we reserve a minimum of three licenses for social Equity designations is there a second councilman rickenback Second Step motion Is there further discussion councilman grab yes um the maker of the motion reserved for how long along with this reservation be respected and Alan if you want to answer that that's fine indefinitely and that would mean indefinitely if there were other applicants do not apply because forever unless their social Equity we're not going to let it happen is that that what your motion is my motion is a minimum of three will be designated for those who have this designation and the other three would be open for any and every other applicant forever indefinitely do you run it yeah I'll be voting no on that that's no that's not acceptable anyone else want to have some questions or discussion councilwoman Jackson thank you madam mayor uh just a point of clarification um to Andre's Point um in Chuck's Point um given that scenario non-applied and we had others does this give us flexibility to go ahead and allow those and add social Equity uh in the future or does this prohibit us from doing that now don't we have some wiggle room I think it would be it would depend on how the language is written in the ordinance um I I don't know if Corporation Council wants to comment on that um thank you for the opportunity to speak to this I'm a mechanism used and has been used for years in liquor licenses you can set whatever limit you want as long as it's not arbitrary capricious and others and other otherwise offend any protected classes for the Constitution in any Council this counsel or any future council is free to amend that in the future is there flexibility absolutely just like there is with every other piece of your code no counsel can say that a future Council can never amend an ordinance and so is there flexibility absolutely there's flexibility um and so indefinitely I think is the absolutely correct word it is indefinite but it's always subject to the action of the city council thank you thank you Mr Hayes any other discussion uh councilman ruckriegel do you have anything to say or any questions no additional questions hey I'm going to ask one more time any other discussion all right we have a motion on the floor to reserve three of the um license spots I guess license um licenses that are available for uh for cannabis dispensaries will be reserved for three social equity applicants I'll go ahead and open up voting you can cast your ballots councilman Rodrigo hi I just lost all right it looks like the motion prevails with seven voting yes and two voting no okay Annette I think that we have gone through all of the proposed items is that correct all right does anyone have any other further discussion on cannabis okay oh councilman Allen uh thank you madam uh mayor Pro Tim I guess a point of clarification so we have agreed that we're going to allow six uh licenses in the city of Peoria and we currently have two operating and then we technically have four in the queue um what is going to be our communication strategy to those who are in the queue letting them know that um we need you to either make moves and make this happen or get out of the queue so that way we can get others in I know that we have adopted now to reduce the special use permit from 24 months to six months and I think you asked this question earlier but you know how are we going to expedite this now um now that we've put a cap on them and indicating that the city council is entertaining this ordinance change and they could certainly present comments when it's adopted or after it's adopted we could do the same thing and let them know that it's been amended awesome thank you and I appreciate the conversation tonight I think we're moving in the right direction uh with this and we can always reevaluate this in a couple of years but I appreciate the dialogue and the strategy that we established tonight thank you thank you councilman Allen and I I concur it was good to have a discussion and and to set some definite Direction on all the possible limitations so thank you all for being here um I think I know some of us have been pushing to have this discussion for quite some time so I'm glad we had it before um the beginning of May all right I don't believe we have any other business is that correct that is correct all right um I guess then we move on to Citizens opportunity to address the city council since it's special meeting I don't believe we have new business or old business so were there any cards that we received no no cards were submitted okay I'll just make sure is there anybody in the audience who would like to address the council could you but before you start could you state your your name and address for the record yes Eric Burns 3815 North Maryville Avenue Peoria Illinois Peoria Illinois I just got a question you just voted is it a minimum of three or just three because I thought I heard minimum of three I don't know if that makes a difference or not but normally it's sort of what we do here is this is just an opportunity for you to address the council there isn't usually debate back and forth I can just clarify that what the council just voted to have the staff come back with a an ordinance that puts a limit of six licenses for the city with reserving three of those spots for social Equity applicants you're welcome or do we have any other citizens who would like to address the council it doesn't appear that way um we don't have an executive session so is there a motion to adjourn councilman Allen okay and it looks like uh councilman Kelly seconded that all those in favor please go ahead and vote we are adjourned