Aurora City Council set to vote on new marijuana dispensary for far West Side of city
Far West #FarWest
The Aurora City Council is set to vote on a new marijuana dispensary for the far West Side of the city.
City Council members on Tuesday will consider a conditional use permit for a dispensary for Fly Society Group of Aurora, LLC, which does business as AuraLight. It would be on a currently vacant lot at 1350 Orchard Road, between Sullivan Road and Indian Trail.
It would be the fourth dispensary approved in the city of Aurora, although only two have opened, both on the far East Side of the city.
AuraLight has been awarded a conditional adult use dispensing organization license by the state of Illinois as a social equity applicant.
Another social equity dispensary is pending in downtown Aurora.
The Orchard Road site was first planned and platted in May 2000, and has Planned Development District zoning on it, intended for commercial use.
In February, the Tito Group, LLC received approval to build a 5,053-square-foot retail building on the site, and AuraLight wants a conditional use to put the marijuana dispensary in that building.
Tito Group also has the ability to add on to the building up to 8,500 square feet in a future phase.
The City Council recently increased the occupation tax it collects from marijuana dispensaries from 2% to 3%. It means the city now collects a total of 5.25% in taxes from marijuana dispensaries, including sales taxes.
City officials said Aurora would get an estimated $50,000 to $150,000 in additional taxes a year from the two dispensaries currently operating – the nuEra on Farnsworth Avenue, and Zen Leaf on Route 59, near New York Street. A third dispensary opening would mean even more revenue.
The city could even have a fifth dispensary, in the southeast quadrant of the city, officials said.
While aldermen limited the number of licenses under its conditional use procedure to four when it first approved recreational marijuana licenses in October 2019, the city can actually have five dispensaries, because the ZenLeaf dispensary came in as a plus-one license from the state. It operates a medical marijuana dispensary in St. Charles.
slord@tribpub.com