Park Ridge is anticipating only one marijuana dispensary, not two, in the near future after World of Weed, Inc. relinquished its special use permit for a recreational cannabis dispensary at 1036 W. Higgins Road, according to city officials.
World of Weed did not provide a specific reason for why it was abandoning the permit. The special use permit, awarded by the city in February, would have allowed World of Weed to open a dispensary under the name Ivy Hall.
Had Ivy Hall opened, it was anticipated to have generated between $320,000 and $400,000 in tax revenue for Park Ridge annually and done between $8 and $10 million in sales, based on projections used in the application process.
World of Weed attorney Andrew Scott said he was unable to comment on the company abandoning the permit. The company’s president, Greg Elliot, did not reply to requests for comment.
Mayor Marty Maloney announced the news briefly at a June 6th meeting of Park Ridge’s City Council.
“There was another special use for an adult cannabis dispensing organization that was granted on Higgins,” he said. “That business entity that was going to be operating that [facility] has withdrawn its application. So right now there is no other dispensary on Higgins Road that is in progress.”
First approved in January, the site at 1036 W. Higgins Road appears to have drawn much less controversy than Bridge City Collective’s application to open an adult-use cannabis dispensary at 10 W. Higgins Road, just a mile east, in a former VFW Hall. The space is 4,660 square feet.
At the most recent City Council meeting, opponents of the Bridge City Collective dispensary told officials the facility would negatively impact everything from traffic patterns to the local crime rate.
In contrast, there was minimal public comment at either meeting when aldermen gave preliminary approval to the Ivy Hall dispensary.
With Ivy Hall no longer coming to the property at 1036 W. Higgins Road, the next step is up to property owner Mitesh Patel, who could not be reached for comment.
After a 2020 referendum showed about 60% of Park Ridge residents would support the sale of recreational cannabis, the city moved to allow up to two dispensaries to operate within city limits. Dispensaries are also not allowed to operate in any commercial property in Uptown south of Touhy Avenue or within 100 feet of schools and parks. State law sets additional restrictions, including barring dispensaries from opening within 1,500 feet of one another.
Awsumb said the city wasn’t actively recruiting any replacements for Ivy Hall. With the process moving forward at 10 W. Higgins Road, the door is still open to one other dispensary.
Awsumb said the city’s approach would be wait-and-see: “You leave that to the market to respond.”