Haymarket Center says proposed cannabis store too close for comfort

Recreational marijuana has been legal in Illinois since the first of the year, but not everyone is doing a happy dance. And one West Loop alderman is trying to squash a pot shop from opening at 935 Randolph St.

The problem, according to Alderman Walter Burnett, is that the proposed shop would be dispensing recreational weed too close to Haymarket Center. The center, which sits at 124 N. Sangamon St., is the largest drug rehab facility in the city. And the presence of a stream of customers happily shopping for recreational cannabis would, its operators and therapists say, be a trigger for its patients.

So far, city law limits the sale of recreational marijuana to seven stores in each of seven districts, and that excludes parts of the Central Business District such as The Loop and the Magnificent Mile. Stores must be at least 1,500 feet from one another.

But opening a recreational pot store near a drug treatment center is a contingency that apparently no one thought of when writing the ordinances.

In addition to NuMed, which wants to open the Randolph Street store, Nature’s Care and Windy City Cannabis have shown interest in the area.

Haymarket wants any stores selling recreational pot to be at least three blocks from its facility.