Illinois lawmakers plan to create 75 new cannabis store licenses to give poor and minority applicants another chance at entering the billion-dollar industry after being excluded by the current system.
The proposed law would double the number of new retail licenses created last year but not yet issued for recreational pot businesses and would attempt to remedy problems with how applications for the licenses are scored. Those problems resulted in a rash of lawsuits challenging the results and have delayed licenses that were supposed to be awarded by July of last year.
“I’m hoping that we clean up the problems we had,” said state Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat. “Hopefully we learn from our mistakes, and the language in the trailer bill will make it fair and possible for Black and brown people to get into the emerging business.”
Details of the bill were still being hashed out this week in a work group that included lawmakers and representatives from Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration. It’s meant to be introduced in the lame-duck session starting Friday, before new lawmakers are sworn in Jan. 13.
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