Deerfield approves Curaleaf's move to recreational cannabis

While trustees ripped through Monday's agenda in a smooth 20 minutes, the Deerfield village board approved a Curaleaf recreational cannabis facility that essentially replaces an existing medicinal dispensary a half-mile away under the same ownership.

Deerfield has a limit of one permit in the village for a cannabis business. That is held by Curaleaf's current location, 151 S. Pfingsten Road. It's operated there since it obtained its medical license in 2015.

Greenhouse Group LLC, doing business as Curaleaf, also is a tenant at 677 Lake-Cook Road, in the Deerfield Depot Planned Unit Development. Having acquired a state license as a recreational purveyor, once Curaleaf moves its operation into that one-story, 4,022-square-foot space on Lake-Cook, it will close the Pfingsten Road location.

Curaleaf will provide the same medical products at the new location, and those with a medical cannabis card will still be able to purchase those products without the additional taxes applied to recreational marijuana, a city official said.

Curaleaf sought three exceptions to the zoning ordinance within the Planned Unit Development: the ability to unload cannabis outside of the building rather than inside; the ability to store non-cannabis waste, mainly packaging and boxes, on the property, but outside the building; and to have two wall signs, each of 36 square feet, rather than one not more than 10 square feet.

Previously, the Deerfield Plan Commission had found these conditions to be acceptable. By a 6-0 vote on April 28, the commission approved the amendments to the zoning code and the establishment of the recreational facility itself.

"The Plan Commission finds that the proposed recreational cannabis use will fit in with the existing surrounding area and will not have a deleterious effect on the neighborhood," the commission's summary stated.

Not all of the village board was quite as confident when it initially reviewed the concept on June 6.

Trustee Bob Benton didn't mind the medicinal business, but was "very much against" a recreational location. Trustee Bill Seiden also opposed it, but the 3-2 vote of approval was sufficient for village attorney Steve Elrod to prepare the appropriate documents to proceed.

With Seiden absent at Monday's board meeting, Benton remained the lone dissenter in a 4-1 vote to approve the motion.