Elk Grove mayor shuts down smoke shop again - this time, for not checking IDs

An Elk Grove Village smoke shop that had already been cited and temporarily shut down for selling to minors got another suspension Tuesday for not checking IDs of customers.

Mayor Craig Johnson ordered the 15-day tobacco license suspension starting Wednesday for Luv 2 Smoke, 62 Biesterfield Road, following a tense exchange with the shop owner during a public hearing at village hall.

At one point during the 40-minute hearing, owner Pradeep Patel suggested his business was being targeted by the police department. But he later backtracked, saying he welcomes officers to come into the shop, check security cameras, and make sure his cashier is checking identification of all customers.

"If city hall or the police department somehow has kind of made up their mind to close me down, I would rather have you guys make an order right now, tell me now. I'll pack up my bags, take my stuff, leave, and we'll go away," Patel told Johnson earlier. "You are the government. You dictate what happens within the premises of Elk Grove Village. If this particular policing is only for me and not any other tobacco shops, because other people have gotten tickets in the last year ... and yet they are not being asked to follow the same procedures as me. That gives me the impression I'm being disliked, me as a business."

Johnson cut him off, warning, "Mr. Patel, be careful of the path you're going down, the way you're speaking about my police department and how we handle things. I'm losing my patience very quickly up here."

Patel said he understood.

"My police officers do not discriminate," Johnson continued. My police officers do not pick on. My police officers do not target. My police officers do the job they're sworn to do. And for you to start giving insinuations and going down that path, you're pissing me off like no tomorrow."

Johnson shut the business down for 30 days starting in late February after police said the shop sold nicotine vape products and THC - the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana - to minors. The temporary suspension came with the requirement that, after reopening, employees must card everyone, and in-store cameras have to be in working order, available for police review.

Police said they went back to Luv 2 Smoke on April 5 after the Conant High School resource officer caught a student with a THC vape pen she said she got from the shop. Police reviewed video surveillance and couldn't find record of the student purchasing anything, but they did see four transactions take place in one hour in which the clerk didn't ask any of the customers for ID.

Patel said his clerk was familiar with those customers and considered them "regulars," knowing they are at least 21. But he said it was a lapse in judgment that the employee didn't follow the proper procedures.

Johnson said the more stringent rules on Patel's business, compared to the 29 other tobacco license holders in town, were brought on by the earlier violations for sales to minors. He said if there's another violation after the 15-day suspension, he'd shut the business down for good.

"If you feel I'm being harsh to you, that's the way life is," Johnson told Patel. "You set the table, not me. And if you feel we're picking on you, that's wrong. You set the table that requires this to be done. Not me."

The earlier violations at Luv 2 Smoke prompted the village board last month to ban the sale of any products containing THC throughout the village, in what likely was the first local ban in Illinois. Since then, village officials said other towns are considering bans of their own, and legislation is being drafted in Springfield for a statewide prohibition.