The City Council voted Wednesday to outlaw a broad array of hemp-derived products months before a federal ban is set to take effect, kneecapping a lucrative industry that has buoyed many Chicago businesses — but sometimes put unregulated intoxicants within reach of minors.
An exception allowing for hemp beverages, hemp-infused pet products and other CBD offerings led to a 32-16 vote that left the question of whether Mayor Brandon Johnson would veto the ban championed by 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn of the Southwest Side.
Quinn is a savvy political operator who learned his vote-counting skills while serving as chief lieutenant for now convicted and imprisoned former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago.
Quinn acknowledged Wednesday that “it might be tough to get to 34” votes needed to override a veto if Johnson decides to take that political risk so soon after the budget rebellion.
But Quinn said he’s not sure it will come to that.
“He’ll have a choice. Does he want to protect kids, which is my intention, or does he want to do something else: regulate and tax?” Quinn told the Chicago Sun-Times before the vote.
Johnson’s administration opposed the measure because of the small-business boon from the 2018 loophole in federal law that allowed delta-8 THC and other hemp derivatives to proliferate without the restrictions placed on Illinois’ heavily regulated cannabis industry.
That loophole is set to close later this year, prompting Quinn’s push to close it down in the city even sooner. The ban on the sale of hemp products to minors would take effect in 10 days, but other provisions would be pushed back until April 1.
After the meeting, Johnson said he had “some real serious concerns about this ordinance” and hadn’t decided on a potential veto.
“It’s paramount for the good of our city [not only] to regulate, have the ability to actually test, to actually regulate what was passed and to keep people safe, but ultimately to make sure that we’re not driving small businesses out of it,” Johnson said.
Quinn tweaked the full-on ban that passed a key committee vote last month to allow for hemp beverages to be produced and sold by licensed vendors, after pushback from the Illinois Restaurant Association and other industry leaders. Hemp-infused beverages have soared in popularity and kept many bars and restaurants afloat as consumer trends have shifted away from alcohol since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Creams and ointments also will be exempt from the citywide ban, and hemp products will be allowed for animals.
Retailers licensed to sell cannabis products will be allowed to sell hemp-infused beverages, powders and crystalline additives to customers over 21, provided they include “no more than 10 milligrams.” Hemp-infused beverages and additives can also be sold at bars, restaurants with incidental liquor licenses and packaged goods stores.
To appease the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, Quinn also added a “rebuttable presumption” for products that “brand themselves as intoxicated hemp-driven products, beverages and additives.”
Hemp beverages like these displayed last month at Revolution Brewing in Avondale are allowed under Ald. Marty Quinn’s proposed ban.
Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times file
Quinn said he listened to all of the concerns raised when his “blanket ban” was approved by committee, then talked to every one of his 49 colleagues.
“I said, ‘Help me understand where you’re at here. How can we get to a compromise?’ I’m very proud of working with all 50 alders — at least making a real effort to communicate. Something that hasn’t taken place in this term with our current mayor,” Quinn said.
Ald. Maria Hadden (49th) voted against the measure, in part, she said, because “we’re not quite there on hitting some of the protection goals that I know my colleagues had in wanting to keep certain products out of the hands of bad actors.
“We’ve also got a small-business industry that has really done that thing that a lot of us love in Chicago: They have been clever, they have been creative, and we’ve had strong entrepreneurs build whole businesses around CBD and hemp products, especially a lot of minority-owned businesses that were shut out by the larger cannabis space. I’m afraid that this version of the ordinance is going to harm them right now while trying to do some good.”
Ald. Maria Hadden (49th) speaks during Wednesday’s City Council meeting at City Hall.
Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd) warned that “bans don’t discourage people from seeking these products. They just put them in the black market. They are still going to be accessible. You are not necessarily protecting children just because you ban something.”
Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) joined the chorus of progressive alderpersons condemning the measure. “It’s all being digested, but it’s legal if you drink it with a straw and it’s illegal if you chew it with your mouth. I can’t square that,” he said.
The federal Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 allowed THC to be extracted from hemp and concentrated into an array of products with chemical compositions nearly identical to marijuana but aren’t classified as drugs.
They’ve sometimes been marketed to kids with packaging styled after popular candy, prompting outcry from hemp industry critics, including Gov. JB Pritzker. Hemp businesses have invited taxation and regulation, calling for an age minimum of 21 and standards for testing and labeling.
State lawmakers butted heads for years over how to regulate the booming industry, but a late provision tacked onto the federal spending bill to reopen the government last fall promised to close the hemp THC loophole by November unless Congress takes additional action. Hemp industry leaders are making a full-court press in Washington to stave off the looming ban.
Quinn’s citywide ban penalizes businesses, except cannabis dispensaries, up to $5,000 for selling hemp products. They were already banned in seven wards, including Quinn’s.
“I’m getting calls from parents about this product being peddled to kids. That’s the argument: protecting kids versus protecting an industry that you want to regulate and tax,” Quinn said.
Mayor Brandon Johnson presides over a Chicago City Council meeting Wednesday at City Hall.
Johnson’s administration had urged Council members to give it more time to figure out a regulatory framework. Ivan Capifali, commissioner of the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, said in December that a full ban “would be nearly impossible to enforce” and threaten “hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs.”
Johnson included a hemp tax in his proposed 2026 city budget, only to drop it after the pending federal ban passed. Quinn is unwilling to wait. He said he’s afraid that a bipartisan bill introduced in Congress just last week could push back the effective date of a federal ban to 2028.
Illinois Hemp Business Association Director Charles Wu said Quinn’s ordinance came down to “economic favoritism” for the cannabis and alcohol industry over the burgeoning hemp industry.
“I am not here asking for special treatment. I am asking for clear rules, consistent enforcement and a path to compliance that applies equally to everyone,” Wu told Council members.
Wu owns Chi’Tiva hemp lounges in Wicker Park and the South Loop, where employee Esme Marcos said working for the “innovative and sustainable” hemp product business helped “rebuild my life.”
“The restrictions threaten to stifle local businesses like ours and local livelihoods like mine, prioritizing power over support. Instead of fostering responsible practices, it creates fear and barriers,” Marcos said.
Wu said the ban means he’ll have to lay off Marcos and his other Chi’Tiva employees.
“If intoxication is the concern, that concern does not disappear in a beverage. If safety is the concern, banning storefronts that are 21-and-up only, that card and rigorously test their products makes no sense,” Wu said.
