Nearly seven years after Illinois passed its recreational cannabis law—promoted at the time as the nation's most equity-focused legalization—applicants shut out of the licensing process are still litigating. The final case of dozens spawned by the 2020 cannabis licensing lottery reached court last week. Plaintiff Well-Being Holistic Group argues that the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) corrupted three consecutive lotteries, leaving all four of its applications without a dispensary license.
Rev. Otis Davis—minister at Repairers of the Breach Ministries in Chicago's Back of the Yards and a 2019 Chicago City Council candidate—formed Well-Being with attorney Chris Harris and Harris's business partner David Roberts. Their applications earned perfect scores, yet they still lost. "We just want a fair shot," Davis said after the hearing. "We're not asking for anything special, no special privileges, but what they promised from the very beginning."
Well-Being, represented by attorney Chris Carmichael of Henderson Parks, argues IDFPR improperly admitted roughly 450 ineligible entries into a Chicago-region lottery of 901 applicants, nearly doubling the pool. The disputed entries, the group contends, were backed by corporate dispensaries already operating in Illinois's medical cannabis market. Carmichael said one company paid around $500,000 in application fees, with its name on the remitter line of cashier's checks that IDFPR and its vetting consultants failed to flag.
Illinois Assistant Attorney General Alex Moe told Cook County Judge Patrick Stanton that IDFPR vetted the individuals named as principal officers on applications—catching any hidden ownership, the agency argues—and that no rule barred consultants from paying application fees unless they held undisclosed financial interests. IDFPR's recalculation showed Well-Being would have ranked 126th out of 450 applicants even without the disputed entries. "That's something we know with mathematical certainty—that Well-Being would not have received a winning drawing," Moe said.
Carmichael argued that unused social equity licenses make a corrective lottery the only meaningful remedy. Earlier litigation had already delayed the process; the first social equity dispensaries didn't open until November 2022. As of January, only 64 percent of licensed social equity dispensaries were operational, per a Chicago Reporter analysis.
Judge Stanton, skeptical that courts should direct agency procedure, is scheduled to rule at a May 21 hearing.