Potential West Loop weed company, Cannabis Equity Coalition sign community benefits pact

Nature’s Care Company, which plans to open a recreational marijuana dispensary in the West Loop, has agreed to sign a community benefits pact with the Cannabis Equity Illinois Coalition.

The agreement will make the company uphold stricter hiring standards and community outreach, beyond what general state law requires.

The coalition has called on neighborhood associations and city officials to withhold their backing of any new dispensary unless it agreed to the CBA.

Nature’s Care Company possesses one conditional license to open a dispensary in Chicago. The company moved ahead with an application with the city for 810 W. Randolph St. in the West Loop.

As it currently stands, the only companies allowed to open dispensaries in the city are those that were in the state’s medical cannabis program. They are mostly owned by white men.

Coalition President Doug Kelly applauded Nature’s Care Company’s decision to sign the CBA.

“This is a milestone moment for racial justice in the story of Illinois’ cannabis legalization,” Kelly told Block Club Chicago.

The CBA has been portrayed as a “legally enforceable agreement.” Among others, it commits the company to provide 100% living wage jobs for disproportionately impacted individuals, hire 75 percent of employees from impacted areas within two years, donate 10 percent of net profits to community organizations working in impacted areas and contract 10 percent of products and services from minority and social equity businesses.

“The living wage requirement and the employment and hiring requirements are the two things that are most distinct from what the state law requires,” Akele Parnell, an attorney with the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights who is advising the coalition, told Block Club Chicago.

“Nobody knows if the state law will actually create the amount of equity that it’s designed to. … We need a way to ensure that folks from disproportionately impacted areas are able to benefit from legalization economically now.”