Brookfield’s village board last month voted 4-3 to deny a special use permit that would have allowed Prolific Dispensary to open at a vacant commercial property at 9046 31st St. When the board’s vote came down, Tanya Griffin, the CEO of a consulting firm contracted to bring Prolific to town, said she was shocked.
“We were certainly surprised but understood that there was some reluctance to put a dispensary on 31st Street,” she said.
The vote on Feb. 23 came more than two months after the topic was first raised within the public eye at a Dec. 18 meeting of Brookfield’s planning and zoning commission, which voted 4-3 to advance the issue of the special use permit to the village board.
At a number of meetings during those two months, residents filled the seats of the village hall’s meeting room, offering hours’ worth of public comments both for and against the proposition.
Advocates of the dispensary raised its revenue-generating potential for the village and easier access to cannabis on their home turf as boons.
Opponents said the dispensary, at the corner of 31st Street and Park Avenue, would increase traffic near the already problematic intersection of 31st and Maple Avenue and through the northerly residential neighborhood stretching from Roach Avenue through 26th Street. They also raised concerns about a possible increase in crime and decrease in nearby home values.
When it came time to vote, village trustees tied 3-3 on whether Brookfield would deny the permit being sought before Village President Michael Garvey cast the tiebreaking vote in opposition to the dispensary.
Leading up to the meeting, Garvey said he “wasn’t positive” his vote would be necessary. The village president does not vote on issues facing the board unless a tie must be broken.
“I think the applicant was a very reputable and sophisticated developer. I focused on the zoning code and the zoning definitions that we were asked to deal with. I’m very familiar with the area on 31st Street, and it is a C-4 district,” he told the Landmark.
“A C-4 district is intended to provide for limited, basic shopping needs occurring daily or frequently [and] for convenient shopping for persons residing in the adjacent residential neighborhoods while providing highly limited services to non-local uses,” he added. “I felt that this business was not a C-4 business in this location. Based on the residential property immediately adjacent to it, the fact that there are residences above it, I don’t think it fit the character of the neighborhood.”
Garvey said he appreciated the high resident turnout at the meetings where the dispensary was up for discussion.
“There have been so many nights where we’ve talked about important things where nobody was there, so I do appreciate that people came. I know myself and all my fellow board members take public comments very seriously,” he said. “Was it the number of people that came or what they said at the meeting that influenced my decision? Not really. I focused on the ordinances and the definitions of the zoning code.”
As a result of the board’s denial of the dispensary’s special use permit request, Griffin said the Laws family, who would have operated Prolific, was at risk of losing $245,000 in state funding through the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity’s Cannabis Social Equity Loan Program.
“Illinois allocated $40 million toward what’s called the DCEO grant, which is a forgivable loan set aside for social equity licensees,” she said. “It comes with some deadlines to issue it that are tied to a lease and zoning, so that was the juggle that we were trying to accommodate.”
Prolific is the second business the village board has rejected from opening at 9046 31st St. since an antiques store vacated the site in 2019. A daycare was voted down, too, in 2023.
Despite the site’s longtime vacancy, Libby Popovic, Brookfield’s community development director, said there is sustained interest in the location.
“There have been two other businesses that have reached out to the village to check on zoning, and we’re still in touch with the listing agent and engaged with them,” Popovic said. “That site’s been empty and vacant for, gosh, six years now … Ideally, we’d like to see a retail store go there, but that’s not always feasible, and that’s one of the sites that has been challenging.”
While the dispensary’s special use request was rejected, Griffin said she’s still working with village staff to see if Prolific can land elsewhere in town.
“The village of Brookfield has been great. We’re continuing to work them to see if we can locate a dispensary in Brookfield. It’s our first choice, and we’d really love to work with the community,” she said.
