In an effort to give more applicants a fair shot at the blossoming legal marijuana industry in Illinois, the state is planning for an extra cannabis lottery.
The state’s lotteries were providing an additional 185 licenses that are authorized by Illinois legislation that allows up to 500 new licenses.
A “clerical oversight” regarding “data entry” led to the error during the first of three lotteries this summer to grant 185 new licenses, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s senior cannabis adviser, Toi Hutchinson told reporters.
Illinois will hold an extra lottery to give six applicants an opportunity to operate marijuana retail stores after they were wrongly denied fair chances to win earlier, officials said Friday.
The additional licenses are authorized by Illinois legislation that permits up to 500 new licenses, the Chicago Tribune had reported.
According to NBC Chicago, the six applicants won’t be assured of selection in the extra lottery, but the digitized system would recreate what should have been their odds of winning originally.
The development comes as the state announced its list of 51 winners from Lottery 1, Lottery 2 and Lottery 3.
Toi Hutchinson, senior adviser on cannabis to Gov. J.B. Pritzker has noted that the industry is almost completely white-owned, but said Illinois is doing better than any other state in getting new licenses to minority applicants. Of 79 new licenses awarded to cannabis craft growers, infusers and transporters in August, 43% went to black-owned firms, she said.
“It’s been painful to watch how long this has taken,” she said. “As we move forward, this could get better every single year.”
