Roselle board expected to vote next week on marijuana sales, cultivation

The Roselle village board is finalizing plans to lift a ban on marijuana sales and commercial growers in town.

The village board is expected to vote Aug. 2 whether to allow businesses that sell marijuana products and marijuana cultivation in certain neighborhoods. The board met on Monday to discuss where the businesses would be allowed if the ban is lifted.

The proposal before the village board would allow stores selling marijuana in most business districts as long as the stores meet certain requirements. Marijuana sales would not be allowed in the Main Street area, and board members agreed that on-site consumption should be prohibited.

The most likely locations would be along Irving Park Road or near Roselle Road and Nerge Road, board members said. Growing and cultivation sites would be allowed in industrial districts along Gary Avenue, Lake Street, Central Avenue and Medinah Road.

The planning and zoning commission approved of allowing the sites on June 9.

"Looking back, we've been talking about this for two years now and extended the moratorium twice," Mayor David Pileski said. "I'm proud of all the work and research that our staff did to get to this."

While municipalities can't ban possession or use of marijuana by adults, they can prohibit its sale in their communities. Roselle's prohibition was enacted in December 2019, just before recreational marijuana became legal in Illinois.

Roselle trustees are considering the possibility of allowing recreational marijuana businesses because voters approved two cannabis-related questions in an advisory referendum in the April election. One asked if recreational marijuana sales should be allowed in town, and the other asked if the village should permit "growing, infusion, cultivation, processing, and transporting" of recreational marijuana.

Trustee Wayne Domke said Monday that one planning and zoning meeting was not enough time and information to determine the best course of action, saying the village sought no input from other businesses in Roselle and that low turnout in the April election meant not enough people weighed in on the matter.

"Once the genie is out of the bottle, we would have a tough time reversing our decisions," Domke said.

Trustee Tom Della Penna disagreed, saying the board's responsibility it to consider how people voted, regardless of the turnout.

If Roselle permits marijuana sales, individual businesses would need village approval to open. In addition, the Roselle Police Department would need to approve a business's security plan.

Pileski said that while no businesses have approached the village, he anticipates that might change when licenses are issued by the state in the coming weeks.