Coal City Village Board approves pot businesses on limited basis

The Coal City village board has given the approval for sales of recreational use cannabis inside village limits, but in only some situations and only under tight and restrictive guidelines.

In a 4-2 vote on Dec. 11, the board approved an ordinance that amended the village’s zoning code regulating cannabis-related uses.

The amendment recognized the state’s eight definitions of cannabis-related businesses, allowing for six of them – craft growers, cultivation centers, medical dispensaries, infusers, processors, and transporters – to exist in Coal City on a limited basis.

Businesses would be limited to industrially zoned areas only, and may not be any closer than 1,500 feet to any educational institution, day care, religious institution, public park, or property zoned or used for residential uses.

The ordinance also requires any establishment be no closer than 800 feet to from any zoning type outside of industrial.

“As this is in its infancy, this is what the prevailing rules will be,” Village Administrator Matt Fritz said. “But, that’s not to say that the ordinance couldn’t be changed.”

The ordinance does not allow for recreational dispensaries or cannabis lounges.

The ordinance reserves the board’s authority to regulate cannabis-related uses as the business of legalized pot grows in Illinois. Village officials said the law is too new, with too many kinks to work out, to make a decision allowing or denying all recognized legal businesses.

“To me, this is just more evidence of [the state law] just not being baked fully,” said Mayor Terry Halliday. “We can expect, in my opinion, a lot of changes here... I just think there are a lot of open questions and a lot of gaps that can be interpreted multiple ways, especially in a court of law.”

The Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, making adult use and possession of recreational cannabis legal statewide. However, local governments have the authority to regulate sales of recreational cannabis, opting to allow or disallow retailers within their boundaries and to collect a local tax from those sales.

In November, the city of Morris became the first Grundy County municipality to approve recreational cannabis sales. The Grundy County Board has banned recreational sales of adult use cannabis in unincorporated areas of the county.