CITY HALL — Business owners hoping to open a medical marijuana dispensary on the Southeast Side told city officials Thursday that they don't expect to be profitable for more than two years, a period that might take longer after the matter was deferred until June.
At a hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals, officials with Harborside Illinois Grown Medicine, which hopes to open at 1111 E. 87th St. in Calumet Heights, said they planned to eventually donate an undisclosed percentage of profits to local charities.
"We don't expect to be profitable for the first two and a half years," said Les Hollis, chief executive officer of Illinois Grown Medicine. "This is not something that's gonna be an immediate cash cow."
Especially not after the board voted to defer the issue to its June meeting.
The clinic would be located in an industrial area with other medical businesses nearby.
"It's a medical district, quite frankly, which we like," said Hollis.
That firm has already obtained state licenses for a medical-marijuana cultivation center and a dispensary, but the proposed Chicago dispensary is a "joint venture" with California-based Harborside Health Center.
Andrew DeAngelo, director of operations at Harborside, said he'd be overseeing logistics at the dispensary, as his firm has served more than 1 million clients in California and has the expertise in dealing with marijuana "as a medicine rather than as an intoxicant."
"We want to emulate what they've done in Oakland and San Jose," Hollis said.
He and DeAngelo did say they'd be offering medical marijuana at a range of prices from $150-$300 an ounce, at a 100 percent markup from the costs of the cultivation center.
They claimed the support of Ald. Michelle Harris (8th) and set daily hours at 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The site will have sole access to an adjacent parking lot.
Yet the group hit a snag with the board over precise ownership of the various companies involved as well as the joint venture.
"I want to know who everybody is," said Chairman Jonathan Swain.
The group was to present new ownership documents, but evidently it wasn't good enough as the board voted to defer judgment to June.
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