The plan to open a cannabis dispensary on Ogden Avenue in Brookfield has passed through the village’s planning and zoning commission with flying colors.
The commission’s six members on Thursday, May 28, unanimously voted to advance the dispensary’s application for a special use permit to the village board at its next committee of the whole meeting on Monday, June 8.
The case is expected to garner discussion from trustees before possibly being put up for a vote at their second meeting this month on Monday, June 22. The vote will determine whether the applicants — Water + Trees CEO Tanya Griffin and Illinois cannabis grower IC Collective — receive a special use permit, which is required to open a dispensary in Brookfield.
This is Griffin’s second effort to bring a dispensary to Brookfield. Her application for a special use permit to open Prolific Dispensary at 9046 31st St. was approved 4-3 by the planning and zoning commission in December 2025 before the village board voted it down 4-3 in February.
At the meeting, Griffin presented preliminary renderings of the dispensary, which would take the place of dilapidated and unused office space at 9500-08 Ogden Ave. She shared initial projections of the revenue the village would receive from sales tax on items sold by the dispensary. Griffin said the village could net $151,120 in 2027, $248,544 in 2028 and $297,398 in 2029 based on plans to open shop by November or December of this year.
“That could indeed be a very conservative [tax revenue] estimate,” Griffin said. “The neighboring dispensary, the closest one to here, does about a million dollars a month [in sales], and we projected a considerably lower number.”
Griffin again boasted the new dispensary, operated by and vertically integrated with IC Collective, would offer products at “a consistently low price” in comparison to other dispensaries in Chicagoland, which she said may sell cannabis at higher regular prices with shifting sales prices.
After the commission’s unanimous vote, Libby Popovic, Brookfield’s community development director, told the Landmark she believes the Ogden Avenue property will be a better fit for Brookfield’s first dispensary than the location at 31st Street and Park Avenue that was shot down.
“That wasn’t the right and appropriate space for it, but Tanya and her group were still interested in Brookfield for all the obvious reasons: They love the area, she has family that lives here, Brookfield had already passed an ordinance in 2019 to bring a cannabis dispensary, and the one that was going to go on Ogden was not moving forward,” Popovic said.
After establishing zoning rules for cannabis sellers in 2019, Brookfield trustees unanimously approved a dispensary, which would have been operated by The 1937 Group at 8863 Ogden Ave., in May 2023. The project stalled during construction, and village officials revoked its special use permit earlier this year.
Popovic said the unoccupied parcel on Ogden Avenue is “more appropriate” due to the higher volume of traffic, increased access to parking and adjacency to other commercial properties, as IC plans to redevelop the entire corner at Dubois Boulevard.
“As we were looking for the site for 9500 [Ogden Ave.], the developer specifically was interested in knowing what was going behind there. That opened up a conversation on future development, because the village is interested in doing other development there at the Congress Park site,” Popovic said.
Despite the apparent excitement of village officials, one public commenter — resident Manni Carathanassis, who said he lives just down the block on Dubois Boulevard — expressed his distaste for the proposal.
“I don’t want this here. Not at all, not even a little bit. I already have a massive nuisance from people coming from the currency exchange throwing their blunt wrappers on my lawn,” Carathanassis said. “With the train there, I think it’s going to bring more nuisance people throwing garbage in my lawn. I don’t want a dispensary that I can see right from my window.
“When I drive past dispensaries on Ogden further down — I believe it’s Westmont, by the Tesla dealership — I’ve often driven behind cars that smell like weed. I don’t want people smoking weed driving up and down my street. I don’t want people smoking weed in my lawn. I don’t want this in my neighborhood, on my block, literally two houses from my house,” Carathanassis added. “My family’s been here 10 years. Everyone who lives on my block, I love them. I love my neighborhood; I love my village. … This feels like it’s infringing on my happiness, on my life.”
Carathanassis told officials he planned to “launch a campaign online with multiple petitions” to try to stop the development of the dispensary if the village approves it. He shared the first of any such petitions with the Landmark over email on Sunday, May 31. It has 47 signatures as of Tuesday, June 2.
“If the dispensary does open in my neighborhood, I intend to start a local political party and run for public office in Brookfield in the next election,” Carathanassis wrote in his email. “I also intend to do as much as I can within the law to hurt the dispensary’s business if they do open near my home … The Greek blood that runs in my veins will not allow me to sit back and not protect the people and the land that are important to me.”
