Mount Prospect going to referendum on recreational pot sales
Mount Prospect voters will get their say on whether they want marijuana sold in the village for recreational use.
The village board by a 4-2 vote Tuesday agreed to place a nonbinding advisory referendum on the Nov. 3 ballot asking whether the village should permit such businesses in town.
“We get direct input from the citizens when we do this, and I think this is an important enough question,” said Trustee Paul Hoefert, who voted in favor of a referendum during Tuesday's special meeting. “We all have our constituents that we talk to, but it would be very hard to say that we talked to enough people in the village to get a representative sample of where the entire community stands on this very question.
“I'm comfortable living with the results of the referendum,” he added.
Village trustees voted in December to ban recreational marijuana sales in town, but since then have watched as neighboring communities like Arlington Heights and Prospect Heights either reversed similar bans or approved pot businesses.
Trustee Eleni Hatzis, who said she received negative comments about her family after she voted against recreational marijuana sales in December, backed the referendum proposal.
“This is (the taxpayers') money, and I think that something so important and people feel so strongly about, I think we should let them decide,” she said.
Trustee Colleen Saccotelli pointed out that the board ignored a 2018 Cook County advisory referendum in which a large majority of voters supported legalization of recreational marijuana “so I'm concerned that if we do another (nonbinding) referendum ... that the board won't take those results into consideration.”
Trustees William Grossi and Richard Rogers voted against going to referendum, but did not comment on their votes. Both voted for the ban in December.