A marijuana dispensary in Springfield, Illinois, has received approval from the city to open the state’s first legal cannabis consumption lounge.
The Springfield City Council voted 9-1 late Tuesday to grant a permit to HCI Alternatives — soon to be renamed Illinois Supply & Provisions — allowing it to open the lounge in a space connected to its downtown pot shop.
“It’s going to be more than just a big open room where people can smoke cannabis,” Chris McCloud, a spokesman for HCI Alternatives, told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s going to be well done, it’s going to be tastefully done, and it’s going to be an experience.”
Illinois legalized recreational marijuana on Jan. 1, making it the latest state in the nation to allow retail dispensaries to operate in the face of federal prohibition.
And while using marijuana in public is prohibited under Illinois law, municipalities within the state can set their own rules for regulation on-site consumption at dispensaries.
“It’s uncharted territory right now as to what we’re doing, so we’re trying to figure that out and hopefully we can figure that out in the next three to four months and, once again, develop the model by which other lounges are going to be looking to do the same thing,” said Chris Stone, a policy adviser for Ascend Wellness, HCI’s parent company, the State Journal-Register reported.
Eleven states and D.C. have legalized the recreational use of marijuana for adults since 2012, though only nine of those currently allow retail dispensaries to operate: Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.
Marijuana consumption lounges are few and far between, however, with the nation’s first fully licensed and regulated establishment of its kind opening in Denver in 2018.
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