Village trustees in Brookfield are set to vote on Feb. 9 on a special use for a proposed cannabis dispensary at the corner of 31st Street and Park Avenue after discussing it at a Jan. 12 meeting, where they directed the village’s engineers to look into parking concerns along Park Avenue.
According to village staff, Brookfield would receive sales tax revenue worth about 5% of total sales from Prolific Dispensary if it were approved at the site at 9046 31st St.
The petitioners projected earning $1.5 million in 2026, $3.8 million in 2027 and $4.1 million in 2028, leaving Brookfield to earn $79,600 in sales tax in 2026, $190,000 in 2027 and $209,000 in 2028, staffers said.
Village Manager Tim Wiberg told trustees he believed in the feasibility of the projected revenues after speaking with staff in Riverside, who shared that the Star Buds dispensary along Harlem Avenue is “in the ballpark” of Prolific’s projections after a similar timeframe.
“I do think we should consider the revenue impacts of the business,” Trustee Kyle Whitehead said. “The projection of the potential to generate more than $200,000 annually in sales tax revenue would make it by far, I believe, the highest sales tax generator in the community, including the zoo.”
Residents packed the meeting, with many giving public comment against the dispensary due to concerns over traffic in the nearby residential neighborhood, following a crowded Dec. 18 planning and zoning commission meeting where they expressed similar issues.
Two commenters, Meagan Cullen and Leslie Everson, said they had collected more than 300 resident signatures on a petition against the approval of the dispensary.
“The neighborhood is woven into our children’s daily lives. Placing a cannabis dispensary here sends the wrong message about our priorities as a village and permanently alters the character of a neighborhood meant to be safe and family-centered,” Everson said.
They said they had seen studies showing property values decreased after dispensaries opened nearby and led to more “nuisance-related crimes.”
“Brookfield residents should not be asked to accept these added safety risks in the very place where they raise their children,” Cullen said.
Wiberg said he had spoken with village staff in Riverside, Berwyn and Lombard, who shared that there have been no crime reports associated with their respective dispensaries, aside from a loud noise complaint in Riverside on Star Buds’ opening day.
Other commenters raised concerns about increased traffic in the area due to the petitioner’s projected volume of customers who would be coming and going throughout the day.
“Looking at eight minutes per person, up to six people at a time in there. If you do the math, that’s 45 people per hour, 45 cars per hour, going in and out of the dispensary,” said Josh Edwards, a resident nearby the site. “My concern is the roadways there, the infrastructure, the roads and it being really unsafe for people.”
Many public commenters said they had no issue with the nature of the dispensary itself, but they shared concerns about its proximity to Candy Cane Park and Brook Park Elementary School as well as the northerly residential neighborhood, where increased traffic is a known issue as drivers seek to avoid the difficult intersection of 31st Street and Maple Avenue.
Many of the trustees were sympathetic to the issue of traffic, though they said it was not a burden for the dispensary to bear.
“It sounds like, outside of the dispensary and any business on [31st Street], that there is a big issue in this neighborhood that separately needs to be addressed,” Trustee Nicole Gilhooley said.
Trustee Julie Narimatsu said she could empathize with residents, as she lives on an offshoot of Ogden Avenue.
“There’s a vape shop with very bright lights right on the corner, and Galloping Ghost. There are all sorts of parking issues,” she said. “The nature of having businesses come to Brookfield — I don’t know that it’s necessarily always going to be a worst-case scenario, and we’ve made a community in our neighborhood despite living so close to Ogden.”
There are 12 public parking spots across the street and around 10 available for customers out back alongside six diagonally angled street parking spots directly next to the building. The board directed Hancock Engineering, Brookfield’s contracted firm, to examine those six spots and whether they could be moved across the street in response to concerns that vehicles turning north onto Park Avenue could run into cars backing out of the angled parking.
Trustee Kit Ketchmark seemed to be against the dispensary due to having several cannabis dispensaries in nearby communities like North Riverside and Riverside, though Tanya Griffin, a consultant for Prolific, said the lack of dispensaries in Brookfield as well as nearby LaGrange, LaGrange Park, Hinsdale and Western Springs made the village a prime location.
The village board agreed to bring the issue of the special use to a vote at their Feb. 9 meeting, as Narimatsu will be unable to attend the board’s next meeting on Jan. 26.
