| It’s been a long road littered with lawsuits, but Illinois awarded its long-awaited craft grow cannabis licenses this week.
The Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) announced the license winners June 1, completing a licensing round that was supposed to close in December 2021.
All 48 licenses went to entities that Illinois defines as Social Equity Applicants, with 20 (42%) awarded to Black-owned businesses, 17 (36%) awarded to white-owned operations and four (8%) awarded to Hispanic-owned companies. (Eight percent of the licensees are owned by a partnership group and 6% did not provide that information.)
As this chapter of Illinois’ licensing process comes to a close, another one also nears its conclusion; a judge ended a court order May 27 that allows the state to issue 185 adult-use cannabis dispensary licenses, which were also held up by separate court orders stemming from litigation challenging that application scoring process.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation announced in March that it would simplify the cannabis retail licensing process with a new set of rules, which will likely be considered by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules later this summer.
- Melissa Schiller, Senior Digital Editor | 
