The first casualty in the Illinois Medical Marijuana contest is apparently official. Green Thumb Industries, which had obtained cultivation licenses in three Illinois districts, apparently decided to decline the license for their proposed District 1 cultivation center in Dixon. As a result, that license will now go to the next highest scoring applicant.
By law, licensees were required to pay a $200,000 fee, and secure a $2 million bond for each permit by close of business Wednesday.
“After careful consideration, GTI accepted cultivation permits in Districts 7 and 17, and declined a cultivation permit for District 1,” the company’s CEO Ben Kovler said in a statement. “Narrowing our focus to operations in Rock Island and Oglesby, puts GTI in the best position to ensure long term stability, while producing the highest quality product and contribute to the overall success of the pilot program.”
The State of Illinois says GTI was the only licensee which failed to make the required payments by the Wednesday deadline.
"The Department has received the required fees and escrow/bond documents from every other district where a permit was awarded," Kristi Jones, the spokesman for the Illinois Department of Agriculture, said in a statement. "The Department will proceed with District 1, according to the administrative rules."
The state has revealed only the scores for the winning cultivation applicants. Thus, the second-place finisher has never been revealed. It is known, that Glenview-based IPP had mounted an aggressive campaign for the Dixon license, going so far as to arrange the purchase an 8 acre site in a Lee County industrial park for $320,000.
Indeed, IPP has already started construction on that site, on a 100,000 square foot facility.
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GTI, the cultivation concern which gave up the license, was also awarded growing licenses in Rock Island, and Oglesby, in LaSalle County, along with a dispensary license in Lake County.
John Thompson, the Dixon area Chamber of Commerce chief, told NBC 5 he received an email from GTI a week ago, indicating they would likely opt out of the Dixon license. He said he got the impression they felt with the number of patient prescription cards granted so far, three cultivation licenses didn’t make good business sense.
“I think they have a concern for that market to develop,” he said. “I think they felt they were given three of these centers, and given that level of investment, at least on their side, I don’t think they felt they wanted to put that much out there to do three of them.”
