Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to stop impounding vehicles with marijuana inside — and dramatically reduce fines for those caught using it in public — survived on Monday, but only because it was rewritten on the fly after running into a buzz-saw of opposition.
West Side Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) said the mayor’s original version “drives a Mack truck through” the Chicago Police Department’s ability to “do impoundment for other serious narcotics” by eliminating impoundment of vehicles used to transport less than 30 grams of marijuana.
“The Mack truck becomes that, when you go to court or go to hearings to get your car back, [you’ll say], `I was coming to buy marijuana’ ... versus, `I was coming to buy heroin or crack,’” Ervin said.
“I’m worried about ... the police department losing the ability to deal with cocaine, heroin and other hard drugs from an enforcement standpoint.”
If marijuana purchases become a “default defense” for anyone caught buying drugs, police won’t do reverse stings, where undercover officers pose as drug dealers to target drug buyers, the alderman said.
“People don’t come back to those locations when they get their cars towed,” said Ervin, whose West Side ward includes the crime-ridden Harrison District.
West Side Ald. Michael Scott (24th), Lightfoot’s handpicked Education Committee chairman, was equally concerned about unintended consequences.
“In communities in which I serve, it’s a large, open-air drug market. I want to make sure I give the police have every tool they can [use] and not remove tools,” Scott said.
Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) said he understood the mayor’s desire to re-write cannabis laws that have disproportionately impacted communities of color — but not at the expense of “turning a blind eye to the illegal industry that rages” on many Chicago street corners.
“Saying we’re not gonna impound vehicles that have anything to do with cannabis sales is just wrong. It’s gonna promote this environment where that’s gonna be your positive defense any time you get pulled over,” Lopez said.
“We’re in such a rush to get this ordinance put together, we might actually be putting our worst foot forward in communities impacted negatively for decades in this war on drugs.”
The Committee on Public Safety took a brief recess, then a longer second one, then a third, to salvage the mayor’s ordinance in time for Wednesday’s full Council meeting.
“We have a poor habit in this body of not fixing stuff. ... If we can fix it on the front-end, let’s do it now,” Ervin said.
Eventually, the committee approved the measure, with Lopez the lone “no” vote.
The vote came after more than three hours of efforts to find a compromise on impoundment. Aldermen finally settled on language that Public Safety Committee Chairman Chris Taliaferro (29th) explained to his colleagues before the final vote.
“If you’re purchasing cannabis from anywhere that is not licensed — from Joe Schmoe on the street or from a house that’s not authorized to sell — your vehicle is subject to impoundment,” under the new language, Taliaferro said.
Even after Jan. 1, when adult use of pot becomes legal statewide, people still will be fined for consuming marijuana in places where public use is not allowed, or for transporting unsealed cannabis in a vehicle or school bus.
Lightfoot’s ordinance would establish a far more lenient approach.
Fines for first-time offenders caught with up to 30 grams of weed would drop from $250-to-$500 to $50 and to $100 for subsequent offenses within 30 days.
Yet another problem emerged when aldermen were told marijuana transported in vehicles traveling on expressways would have to be carried in a sealed, child-resistant, odor-proof canister.
That prompted Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11th) to wonder aloud if the city should require marijuana dispensaries to package weed in those canisters so Chicago consumers don’t get caught in a trap.
While aldermen fear the ordinance goes too far, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois made the opposite argument.
“People who are experiencing poverty. People who are experiencing homelessness. People who are renting or in public housing. Those will be people who will still be prohibited and kept outside of this process,” said ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka.
“As a result, the enforcement that remains will be disproportionately directed towards those individuals and not more broadly. So one’s income level, or where one lives, could end up being impactful in terms of who gets targeted for continued enforcement and who does not.”