A company that wants to grow medical marijuana in Carlinville has sued the state Department of Agriculture and a rival company that has been granted a license to grow pot, claiming that the license was issued in violation of state law.
Abide Palliatives, which did not win a license to grow marijuana, says that Compass Ventures, which got a license to grow pot in Litchfield, is out of compliance with a state law that says cultivation facilities must be at least 2,500 feet from residentially zoned property.
“The law is very clear,” says Mark Strawn, a Springfield lobbyist who is a principal of Abide Palliatives. “It doesn’t meet the buffer zone requirements.”
The state in response to the lawsuit filed Nov. 25 in Sangamon County Circuit Court doesn’t dispute that the Compass site is within 2,500 feet of a residential zone but notes that the plaintiff hasn’t alleged that there are any structures within the area. Public policy, including the needs of patients, outweighs the plaintiff’s request that Compass be denied permission to start construction of its cultivation center, the state says in response to the lawsuit before Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge Leslie Graves.
The state notes that the medical marijuana program is a pilot that’s scheduled to terminate at the end of 2017. Litigation that would slow the construction of a cultivation center, the state says, would undercut the intent of the program.
“(T)he requested stay would be directly contrary to the implementation of the short-lived legislation,” Bilal A. Azia, an assistant state attorney general, wrote in response to the plaintiff’s request that the court stay the state’s denial of a license to Abide Palliatives. “Protracted litigation over who is allowed to cultivate marijuana that may well extend half the life of the program itself is not within the interest of public policy.”
Neither Compass officials nor William Moran, attorney for the company, could be immediately reached for comment.
The lawsuit includes a letter sent last February to the Department of Agriculture by an attorney for Abide Palliatives notifying the state that the Compass site was within 2,500 feet of residential property. Strawn said the site is “several hundred feet” closer to residential land than the law allows.
Gov. Bruce Rauner in February awarded a permit to Compass but also said that the governor’s legal staff was conducting a review of the evaluation of permit applications by the previous administration to ensure that the process was fair. At the time, the governor’s office said that it was concerned that recommendations for awards of licenses by the administration of former Gov. Pat Quinn would not be upheld in court. Some proposals, including the one from Compass, were put on administrative hold pending the legal review.
In June, a lawyer for the Department of Agriculture told an attorney for Abide Palliatives that the zoning wasn’t actually residential because it allows for churches, parks and schools in addition to homes, an interpretation that John Myers, a lawyer for Abide Palliatives, calls “absurd” in court documents.
Myers in the lawsuit also says that the state retroactively changed rules in April to allow applicants who lacked letters from local zoning authorities certifying that zoning was proper to amend applications.
According to the lawsuit, Abide Palliatives has spent more than $400,000 on its quest to build a cultivation center. The company’s application submitted to the state was 1,500 pages long, Strawn said, and the firm also spent a considerable sum researching the best way to grow marijuana. The company’s proposed 30,000 square foot facility would cost $8 million to build, he said.
“I guess we’ve gotten ourselves to court for $400,000, and that’s the place we didn’t want to end up,” Strawn said.
The state’s medical marijuana program has so far failed to meet predictions that tens of thousands of people would obtain cards allowing them to buy pot and so become customers for marijuana grown in a maximum of 22 cultivation centers across the state. According to the most recent figures, just 3,600 people have obtained cards.
Strawn acknowledges that the current math doesn’t look good for investors in cultivation centers, given that the program is scheduled to sunset at the end of 2017. The list of ailments for which marijuana can be legally used is also restrictive compared with several other states. But Strawn predicted that the Rauner administration will ultimately allow marijuana to be used to treat more ailments, and he also said he believes that the General Assembly and the governor will extend the pilot program.
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2015.
