Carpentersville’s 2nd recreational pot dispensary to offer drive-thru
A cannabis dispensary that’s soon to open in a former Carpentersville restaurant on Randall Road will have a drive-thru lane.
Here & Now dispensary is taking over the former Sunrise Social location, which relocated to the Algonquin Commons on County Line Road in December.
It will be the first drive-thru dispensary in the area, manager Jose Lumbreras said. “It will allow people to have a more convenient transaction,” he said of the setup.
The dispensary will also be available for both recreational users and medical cannabis license holders, he said. A recent change to Illinois state law allows recreational dispensaries to serve those with the license at a lower tax rate.
Interior construction work at the 2258 S. Randall Road site is ongoing, and they plan to hire between 12 to 25 employees in the next few months, Lumbreras said.
“We’re hopeful to be done with the build-out phase in a month or so,” he said.
The company is hoping for a December opening, he added, but it will depend on the availability of state inspectors.
When complete, it will be Here & Now’s second location. The first, in Des Plaines, opened earlier this month.
The company chose Carpentersville for its second store, in part, because the village is pro-business, Lumbreras said. Carpentersville had zoning in place to allow a dispensary on Randall Road, he said.
“Everything has been very smooth,” Lumbreras said. “We have nothing but great things to say about the village of Carpentersville.”
Illinois has also made it easier for cannabis dispensaries to open. When recreational use of cannabis was legalized in 2020, dispensaries were limited to certain areas, mostly within industrial areas. But they are now allowed in commercial areas.
The site is located in a shopping center that includes Menards, 7 Brew, Starbucks and Culver’s.
When complete, Here & Now will be the village’s second recreational pot store. The village’s first, Windy City Cannabis, opened in 2021 at 125 S. Western Ave.
“Windy City has certainly done a good business from the village’s standpoint,” Village Manager Brad Stewart said. “We’ve had no issues with that operation or that location. It seems to be running very well.”
Windy City Cannabis has become part of the community by contributing to fundraisers and getting involved with organizations like Friends of the Fox River, Steward said. “We’ve seen them as an active member of our community,” he said.
The dispensary has also generated healthy state and local revenues. The village’s tax on cannabis products was 2% last year but increased to 3% this year.
Last year, Windy City Cannabis generated a total of $334,988 in tax revenue, with $185,249 going to Carpentersville and $57,113 to the state. It also paid $92,624 in retailers occupation taxes.
Carpentersville changed its zoning regulations in 2018 to allow recreational cannabis dispensaries, Stewart said. The idea was to make the village more attractive to dispensaries coming to town, he said.
“We are actually looking to create some functional limitations of how many there will be going forward. It would be limited to three,” said Stewart, who noted that officials need to be aware of saturation due to the village’s 40,000 population.
“I think the concern is we appreciate there’s an enormous financial investment these dispensaries have to put forward to even open the doors. We are talking about a seven-digit investment just to get out of the gate to do this,” Stewart said.
“What we wouldn’t want to do is have competing dispensaries in very close proximity to each other. We don’t think it would be good for the business model for the existing dispensaries or future dispensaries.”
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The (Elgin) Courier-News.