Brookfield’s village board has struck down an ordinance that would have allowed a cannabis dispensary to open at a vacant property at the corner of 31st Street and Park Avenue.
Trustees on Monday night tied their vote 3-3 before Village President Michael Garvey voted against the dispensary, breaking the tie in favor of a vocal group of residents who have spoken out against the proposed business.
Their concerns have included increased traffic, increased crime and a negative impact on the family-friendly nature of the residential neighborhood immediately north of the site. The location will remain vacant for now as it has since 2019. The village board in 2023 rejected a petition to allow a daycare to open in the building due to similar concerns over parking and traffic issues.
Trustees Kit Ketchmark, Katie Kaluzny and Nicole Gilhooley voted to deny the special use permit while trustees Jennifer Hendricks, Julie Narimatsu and Kyle Whitehead voted against denying it before Garvey broke the tie in favor of the former group. If the board had rejected denying the permit, they would have proceeded to vote to explicitly allow the permit.
Tanya Griffin, the CEO of Water + Trees, a consulting firm working to bring Prolific to Brookfield, did not respond to a request for comment by the Landmark the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 24, after the village board meeting.
This is the second split vote in the controversial case of the proposed dispensary, which was recommended for approval by the planning and zoning commission after a 4-3 vote.
Before the board voted, Ketchmark and Kaluzny each said they felt the applicants had not met Brookfield’s standards of review to grant a special use permit, which require petitioners to describe the proposed use’s compatibility with the property’s zoning district, its compatibility with existing uses on-site and nearby, and how they plan to deal with any “unique, special or unusual impacts” upon the public or adjacent properties.
Narimatsu said she did not believe the dispensary’s nature would negatively impact parking in the area compared to any other business at that location.
“I believe this proposal appears to meet the standards we’ve adopted. I see this as a family-owned, small business that is fundamentally different in nature from [dispensaries] I’ve seen in other cities on major thoroughfares,” she said. “I also give weight to the recommendation and expertise of the zoning commission, who voted in favor of this proposal, and our village staff who have reviewed this proposal carefully.”
Hendricks said the dispensary would “probably [be] one of the safest properties in town” and said the public parking lot immediately across Park Avenue from the site would be able to accommodate Prolific’s customers in combination with the site’s own parking lot and nearby public parking.
“We did put that parking lot in across the street in part so that this property would be able to be developed because we recognized that the neighborhood was concerned about parking in this area, and I do believe that it does alleviate that,” she said. “I don’t materially see it as different from any other retail property in town.”
Whitehead said the dispensary would bring additional traffic to the area in the same way as any other retail use on the site and suggested the board consider adding additional parking to the area if it continues to be a resident concern in relation to developing the vacant property.
“We have granted variances on this very corridor for specific business that fell short of the current parking requirements. These are not hard and fast rules,” he said. “Revenue certainly should not be the only consideration. There are many factors … but revenue, I do think, is important. We have lots of conversation as a board about how we are overly reliant on property tax revenue as a village.”
Brookfield would have earned 5% sales tax on recreational cannabis sales at Prolific, according to the village’s memo about the case, with expected village revenues of $79,600 in 2026, $190,000 in 2027 and $209,000 in 2028.
Prolific is the second dispensary that has gone before the village board for approval. In 2023, the board unanimously approved a special use permit for a dispensary at 8863 Ogden Ave., which was proposed to be operated by the 1937 Group. Construction at the site has since stalled, and Community Development Director Libby Popovic said the property “has a lot of code violations” that have led to multiple adjudication hearings.
At the committee of the whole meeting, which followed the regular meeting Monday night, trustees seemed supportive of a petition from village staff to revoke the Ogden Avenue property’s special use permit to open a dispensary there.
The special use that was granted in 2023 could only be fulfilled by the 1937 Group, “so, technically, no one else could comply with that,” Village Attorney Adam Durkin said. “This is strictly to clean the slate of the 1937 Group, which has not been involved with this property since shortly after the special use was passed.”
The board agreed to put the case up for a vote at their March 9 meeting.
