Have you noticed construction where the currency exchange once was at the corner of Harlem and Roosevelt?
A new business will soon occupy 7202 Roosevelt Rd. once Mint Cannabis dispensary opens this fall, likely in November, according to a Mint spokesperson. With improvements nearly finished, dispensary leadership hopes to request a final inspection from the village and the state this month.
Mint Cannabis completely renovated the interior of the old currency exchange. Now, the building includes a sales floor, where most of Mint’s products are visible to customers. According to the spokesperson, that’s a unique setup for an Illinois dispensary, most of which don’t display sales products as extensively.
Mint Cannabis started in Arizona in 2016. The Forest Park location will be the dispensary’s 32nd throughout Illinois, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Nevada, but only the second in the Chicagoland area after its Willowbrook location.
With a wide range of cannabis products, Mint says it has donated more than $3 million to nonprofits, families and individuals in need to break down stigmas associated with cannabis. The dispensary regularly offers discounted and free product programs for seniors, cancer patients and veterans.
Forest Park dispensaries
Mint Dispensary will be Forest Park’s third to open in a year. Parkway Dispensary opened at 7432 Madison St. last September, and Bloc Dispensary at 7216 Circle Ave. opened in June. Steve Glinke, director of the village’s department of public health and safety, said the three are within one square mile of each other.
After the planning and zoning commission recommend the village council approve the dispensary’s conditional use last October — and the village council did so in November, allowing Mint to reside in a commercial district since Forest Park zoning code only allows dispensaries in industrially zoned areas — commissioners mentioned putting a cap on the number of dispensaries in Forest Park.
At the November council meeting where the dispensary was approved, Commissioner Maria Maxham shared her concern about the pressure to approve whatever the PZC recommends.
“We’re often told that, as a council, if we say no to something that gets approved conditionally through the PZC, then it puts us at legal risk of being sued because we said no to someone who met the requirements,” she said.
Though there hasn’t been any public discussion about the cap since, Glinke said he thinks the cannabis market is hitting a saturation point. He added that it’s hard to say how much money dispensaries will bring to Forest Park through the local portion of the cannabis tax.
“It’s very difficult to predict projected revenues,” Glinke said. “It’s a very, very tricky business I’m learning.” He added, “The market is going to drive what happens here.”
The Mint spokesperson agreed about how hard it is to project revenue from a cannabis tax, “given that this dispensary hasn’t opened yet, it would be challenging to speculate.”
In the process of gaining its conditional use permit, Mint Cannabis has addressed multiple requests by Forest Park residents.
Locals who spoke at the September and October plan commission meetings, and the November council meeting, shared concerns about public safety. But when commissioners approved Mint dispensary in November, they spoke about how, based on what they’ve seen from other dispensaries, there’s nothing that links marijuana businesses to increases in unwanted behavior. They said dispensary security measures likely improve safety around a dispensary.
According to Mint, the dispensary will have security cameras, motion sensors and glass break sensors among other safety measures.
Residents also spoke about how they worried about increased traffic in an area that already has a busy intersection.
To address traffic concerns, cars will only be able to exit the Mint dispensary parking lot either by turning right on Harlem or right on Roosevelt.
Though Mint wasn’t required to do a traffic study, the dispensary’s traffic impact statement found that traffic generated by the business would increase cars on adjacent roadways by less than 1%. According to the dispensary in October, an average customer will spend no more than 10 minutes in the store, with an average of 23 people expected to visit during the busiest hour in the morning and 41 during the busiest evening hour.
Mint Cannabis operating hours will be 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week.