High Haven’s The Record Store, the first recreational cannabis dispensary in the city of Elgin, is open for business.
“It’s been a long road,” said Mahja Sulemanjee-Bortocek, chief executive officer of High Haven Cannabis and a graduate of Larkin High School in Elgin. “I’m ecstatic to bring a dispensary to my hometown.”
Located at 15 Clock Tower Plaza, The Record Store follows the concept employed at High Haven’s other two stores by incorporating a theme — in this case recalling the days of old 1970s record stores — as part of its identity. The company’s Darien location is known as The Gas Station and its store in Normal is The Puff Palace.
Sulemanjee-Bortocek has helped set up dozens of dispensaries around the country, she said, and observed that most looked like sterile medical facilities.
“We wanted to do something very different,” she said. Embracing a more fun approach helps cut down on the stigma some people feel when walking into a recreational pot store, she said.
“People have been asking if we sell records,” Sulemanjee-Bortocek said.
Behind a security door, cannabis enthusiasts can browse through High Haven’s menu, which includes locally crafted cannabis as well as “edibles, different drinks and topical patches,” she said. “We carry anything you can find in a traditional dispensary, anything infused with cannabis.”
High Haven likes to work with large and small growers, including two based in Elgin, Sulemanjee-Bortocek said.
“We’re a small business ourselves so we like supporting other small businesses and watching them grow and be a part of our business,” she said.
“Every single product is hand selected. We have a procurement specialist who has been doing this for a very long time and really understands the plant extremely well,” she said. “We buy everything in small batches so everything is fresh on the floor.”
Opening day on Saturday drew about 400 people. “You know you’re doing a good thing when you see customers smiling,” she said.
Sulemanjee-Bortocek faced a lot of challenges getting to the grand opening.
She applied for a cannabis dispensary license in 2019 and started “courting” Elgin that year, she said, building relationships with local leaders and having conversations with city officials. While the community and city council welcomed the idea, there were hurdles — including the pandemic and a lawsuit High Haven filed against the state over its social equity application process for licenses — they had to clear, she said.
The company won the case in 2022 and received five licenses. The Darien store opened in November 2023 followed by the one in Normal in May.
Finding an Elgin location was a challenge, Sulemanjee-Bortocek said, especially since a dispensary needs a place that has enough customer traffic and adequate parking and can comply with the state’s security regulations.
After a lease on a Randall Road storefront fell through last year, the company set its sights on a new location in the Clock Tower Plaza.
“If somebody would have told me back in high school that I would be owning a dispensary in town, I think many people would have believed it,” Sulemanjee-Bortocek, a 2000 Larkin graduate, said with a laugh.
It’s actually “really insane to even think about it,” she said. The legal cannabis industry didn’t exist back then and marijuana “was so frowned upon. It’s a night and day difference of how people see cannabis today from 20 years ago,” she said.
While many states have allowed the legal sale of recreational pot for adults, Sulemanjee-Bortocek said she believes it’s just a matter of time before the federal government approves it for all.
“I think it will happen sooner than we think,” she said, but she hopes lawmakers take time to build out policies because it’s a very nuanced industry in which one decision could negatively affect existing dispensary owners.
She also hopes to see more women and minorities coming into the industry.
Women of color are a “minority in this space,” she said. “There are not a lot of women of color running operations, making the decisions and getting the business set up.
“I’m glad we’re setting a standard for other people to join, not just women but minorities,” Sulemanjee-Bortocek said. “It’s a really great opportunity to be a role model to the rest of the community. I’ve always said, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see.’”
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
