A City Council vote to approve allowing a cannabis dispensary to operate in the Uptown area of Park Ridge will stand after the mayor admits he misstepped in his intention to veto a zoning amendment.
At the Aug. 19 City Council meeting, aldermen voted 4-2 to allow an amendment to a city zoning ordinance that was intended to establish distancing rules between recreational use cannabis dispensaries in Park Ridge. The measure allowed dispensaries in what is officially called the Uptown Core Subdistrict after that had previously been prohibited.
Park Ridge currently has one recreational use cannabis dispensary that opened in 2023 at 1036 Higgins Road.
“While my intention was to veto the action taken by Council relative to the expansion of where a cannabis dispensary can apply to operate Uptown … I made a procedural error. My mistake means that my intended action (a veto) never took place,” Mayor Marty Maloney stated in a note to the City Council that he shared by email with Pioneer Press.
The mayor explained that he was supposed to provide written notification to the City Council by the Sept. 3 meeting telling of his veto plans. He missed doing that.
“I did not do that, because what I had prepared to pass out was on my desk, during the meeting and I moved forward sharing that message verbally. That was not enough,” he wrote. “Therefore, the action that Council approved is what stands today.”
City Manager Joe Gilmore told Pioneer Press that a mayor’s veto is “ fairly rare” in Park Ridge.
“I can recall a couple in the past 10 years,” he said.
Maloney has been against allowing marijuana dispensaries in Uptown mostly due to the Park Ridge Public Library being in the area. Additionally, the area is a bustling hub in Park Ridge that includes eateries, shopping options, the town’s Metra commuter rail station, is where the farmers market is held and more.
“The library is a magnet for kids in town… there are rules and distance regulations when it comes to dispensaries not being allowed near parks and schools within certain distances. I don’t think it’s insane to treat the library in the same manner, because it does function in a way where it does attract a lot of kids,” he previously said.
It is unclear whether Maloney’s veto would have stood. It could have been overridden by a two-thirds vote of the City Council, Gilmore explained. At least four of the seven aldermen could have voted to override the veto.
Nevertheless, though the City Council approved the zoning change, city leaders are expected to revisit the decision and may put stipulations in place that exclude cannabis dispensaries from being located in proximity to the library.
Alderman John Moran, who has long opposed dispensaries near the library, said he would have voted against the zoning amendment at the Aug. 19 meeting, but he was absent due to other obligations. However, his “no” would have changed the vote to 4-3 and not have doomed the measure.
He explained that he wasn’t happy with the result of the vote or about the mayor missing the Sept. 3 deadline to veto, and he asked to revisit the matter again at the Sept. 16 City Council meeting.
There are currently no cannabis dispensaries asking to locate in Uptown. However, Moran said that as dispensaries are prohibited from operating near parks and schools, the zoning ordinance should be expanded to include the library in Uptown too.
“I was trying to get the library included in our current ordinance alongside schools, day care and parks and other establishments we’ve created a border around,” Moran said, expressing frustration at the August vote and the subsequent inability to reconsider it. “I would like to see this body, either at the next meeting or a month from now, reach a consensus to draft a text amendment to include the library as one of the establishments we put a 100-foot border around.”
Alderman Joseph Steinfels, one of the two who voted against allowing dispensaries in the Uptown area, said he liked the idea of revisiting the issue.
“I’m absolutely in favor of revisiting this,” he said. “Let’s really have a discussion. I really don’t understand how perception matters in some places and not in others.”
Gilmore said the idea of including the library on the list of entities that require a minimum distance from a dispensary was added to a future Procedures and Regulations Committee of the Whole meeting – but with a date to be determined.
Jesse Wright is a freelancer. Pioneer Press Staff contributed.