CITY HALL — Top members of the City Council are seeking hearings on the controversial issue of how the Police Department is handling marijuana decriminalization and ticketing for low-level possession of pot.
Aldermen Edward Burke (14th), Anthony Beale (9th) and Danny Solis (25th) submitted a resolution at Wednesday's City Council meeting calling for hearings on how police have implemented the marijuana reform ordinance passed two years ago.
"While the Chicago Police Department has clearly made great strides in implementing this law by logging fewer arrests for low levels of cannabis possession, I believe the City Council deserves to see all of the statistics firsthand and determine if we have successfully undertaken what this legislation intended," Burke said in a statement.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel threw his support behind the proposal, saying, "There should be a hearing and transparency of information, and we'll do that."
The resolution makes reference to a Roosevelt University study critical of how Chicago was conducting the reforms, saying enforcement was "uneven" and "unjust," as well as other media reports on marijuana arrests and tickets in Chicago.
"We should revisit this issue to also learn if any disparity exists in neighborhoods as to where tickets are being issued and where arrests are still being made," Beale added.
More recently, police have claimed progress on making tickets and arrests more evenly distributed by race and neighborhood, after ending a policy that called for arrests if those possessing pot didn't have a valid ID.
"We've made changes," Emanuel insisted. "I want more police officers on the street, less officers arresting for minor possession of marijuana."
The issue also came up during budget hearings when Burke wanted to know how city revenue has been affected by replacing arrests with tickets.
The resolution calls for Police Supt. Garry McCarthy and Budget Director Alexandra Holt to attend the hearings.
"As the original sponsor who shepherded this groundbreaking legislation into law more than two years ago, I believe it is especially timely to evaluate its progress in Chicago now that other cities such as New York are preparing to follow our lead," Solis said.
"I don't think it's an accident that New York adopted what Chicago did," Emanuel added.
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