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“People want to smoke marijuana in places that they couldn’t before because it was taboo and illegal,” a cannabis consultant told the Sun-Times. “Just like a bar, just like coffee, this a huge experiential thing.”

As the city hurtles toward a full reopening, drinks are now flowing freely at bars and restaurants as Chicagoans emerge from their couches and try to get back to normal.

Weed smokers, however, still have nowhere to legally get stoned in public, meaning pot use largely remains relegated to the shadows over a year after the drug was fully legalized statewide.

In other states, public consumption lounges and smoke-filled party buses are driving tourism by highlighting what recreational weed is supposed to be all about: Having a good time.

“People want to smoke marijuana in places that they couldn’t before because it was taboo and illegal,” said Andy Seeger, a cannabis consultant who previously worked as an industry analyst in Chicago. “Just like a bar, just like coffee, this a huge experiential thing.”

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But as it stands, Seeger said Illinois’ highly regulated pot market is “incredibly unfun,” likening the dispensary experience to “standing in line at the pharmacy” and criticizing existing pot firms for failing to create safe havens for getting high.

“They have no interest in helping the stoners or making this fun. They’re trying to commoditize it. They’re trying to make it [a consumer packaged good] and [that] looks very, very regulated. And the more regulated it is, the more their monopoly holds,” Seeger said, remarking on the handful of major cannabis firms that have an outsized stake in the industry.

And while some businesses want to offer an outlet for customers to indulge, they’re hamstrung by state and local rules.

The prospect of allowing on-site cannabis consumption at businesses prompted spirited debates among both state lawmakers and aldermen. In the end, the state law that legalized recreational weed let localities decide whether to allow dispensaries and tobacco shops to set up consumption spaces, offering an exemption to the stringent Smoke Free Illinois Act that banned indoor smoking at public places.

At least two such lounges have earned local approval downstate but neither has opened. And in Chicago, the City Council still hasn’t set local rules.

Legislation introduced earlier this year in Springfield could also pave the way for a robust cannabis tourism industry, but it’s languished in committees without getting a vote. The bill would allow municipalities or counties to dole out licenses for pop-up events, cannabis clubs and tours “that will allow for the sale and consumption of cannabis or cannabis-infused products.”

Brian Ernst/Sun-Times

Brian Ernst/Sun-Times

Comedy clubs, weed tours and more in limbo

In the meantime, some plans hang in limbo.

Bryan Zises, co-owner of Dispensary 33, said he wants to work with a “social equity” partner to open a weed lounge at his new shop in the West Loop. Zises envisions using the store’s basement for a stony venue that could host comedy and musical acts, although he also has a large space on the ground floor with a long counter and tables that currently serves as a waiting room and could be repurposed.

“It’s available and it’s perfectly set up for all that,” Zises said. “I would love to be able to turn over the consumption lounge to a group that can elevate Chicago music and Chicago’s art scene in a way to bring fun back to cannabis.”

Dispensary 33, which Zises touted as the last independent weed store in the city, has long sought to bring cannabis and culture together. Most notably, Zises and his team have hosted a street festival outside Dispensary 33’s flagship location in Uptown to celebrate 4/20, marijuana’s high holiday.

Zises claimed aldermen “don’t even know how much money they’re leaving on the table” by failing to set local rules for on-site consumption. But after a meeting with Zises the following day, Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) said he’s now planning to draft an ordinance to do just that.

Burnett, whose ward includes the new Dispensary 33 location at 1152 W. Randolph St., said he intends to require all consumption lounges to have a “social equity” partner as a way to bolster minority involvement in the lily-white weed industry, adopting the same language the statewide legalization law uses for applicants getting a leg-up in the licensing process.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times file

Zises isn’t the only dispensary owner thinking about turning a pot shop into a cultural hub.

Jonah Rapino, a spokesman for the Wheaton-based pot firm NuEra, said there have been active discussions about allowing pot use at the firm’s new stores in the West Loop and downstate Champaign and Pekin. But they’ve been stymied by concerns that the current law wouldn’t allow the firm to carry out its grand vision.

Rapino said the company would like to offer cannabis education opportunities, as well events with DJs and bands.

“We would want to be a destination,” said Rapino, who believes that opening up the floodgates for public pot use would be a boon for both the cannabis and tourism industries.

“Having Illinois be the number one social consumption state in the United States would be a huge move and a huge benefit,” he said. “I just think way more people would be here that usually would be going to, say, California, Colorado, Las Vegas and other places if there were lots more options for social consumption.”

For now, NuEra has teamed up with The Hideout, a beloved North Side music venue, where the company recently hosted a sidewalk market to celebrate 4/20.

“A wine tour without sipping wine’

The firm has also partnered with Chi High Tours, a company that launched in April and offers pot-centric tours centered on education and culture. The company currently offers a range of themed tours, including one that brings guests to a brewery and another that ends at a comedy show.

Provided photo/James Gordon

But due to the current restrictions, riders can’t get stoned during the tours — though they are offered CBD-infused edibles. In addition, they’re taken to The Herbal Care Center on the Near West Side to purchase weed and then coached on consuming it.

James Gordon, Chi High Tours’ executive director and founder, conceded that his tours currently lack “the party bus feeling,” though he hopes the law will change to allow for that. Gordon complained that the state is still taking a “hard line” approach to cannabis and isn’t looking to Colorado and California, where he claimed businesses offering public consumption are “everywhere and have an opportunity to grow.”

“At the end of the day, a wine tour without sipping wine just becomes only so much of an experience,” Gordon said, drawing a comparison to hammer home his point.

As Gordon tries to gain a foothold in Illinois’ cannabis world, he said he understands the struggles of the social equity applicants vying for long-delayed permits. Originally from Brooklyn, Gordon was sentenced to four years in a federal penitentiary in Florida after being convicted on a gun charge. While in prison, his dying father visited to express a last wish: “Please change.”

Gordon has since grown into a serial entrepreneur and he now hopes to expand his cannabis tour model into five other cities. Though he lives in Florida and didn’t apply for the new licenses here, Gordon said he wants to be an example for minority business owners hoping to crack into the weed industry.

“Please keep striving, keep pushing. Because greatness is around the corner.”

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The Chicago Bears may not be done re-tooling their offensive line for the 2021 season as ESPN’s Adam Schefter is reporting they are hosting former Washington Football Team offensive tackle…

The post REPORT: Chicago Bears Bringing in Offensive Tackle for Workout first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

Watertown police Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese retired on Monday after more than 41 years on the force.

WATERTOWN, Mass. — A suburban Boston police officer who became a national hero in 2013 when he tackled one of the Boston Marathon bombers retired from the only job he says he ever wanted.

Watertown police Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese retired on Monday after more than 41 years on the force.

He wanted to keep working, but had reached the state’s mandatory police retirement age of 65. Pugliese, an Army veteran and the son of a police detective, said he had wanted to join the profession since he was a teenager.

“The best part of being a police officer is getting out there and helping people, saving lives,” Pugliese told WCVB-TV. “It’s because of all these police officers — not just in Watertown, but everywhere in the world — people sleep soundly in their beds at night because there are police officers willing to sacrifice their lives for them.”

During the April 2013 gunfight with the marathon bombers, Pugliese came face to face with Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

“We were just six feet, maybe seven feet apart,” he told WBZ-TV. “The only thing separating us was a four-foot chain link fence. We were exchanging gun fire and his gun, now we know it ran out of ammunition but, at the time we didn’t know if it jammed. He stopped. He literally took the gun, looked at me, we made eye contact, and then he threw the gun at me and hit me in the shoulder with it. I holstered up and chased after him and tackled him.”

As Pugliese and two other officers held Tsarnaev down, his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, sped toward them in an SUV.

Pugliese grabbed Tamerlan by the belt to pull him out of harm’s way.

“I felt the breeze of that car go by my face. It missed my face by inches,” Pugliese said.

Dzhokhar ran over and killed his older brother.

Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons, who played Pugliese in the 2016 movie “Patriots Day,” sent a video message to the retiree.

“I’m the only guy in Hollywood good looking enough to portray you on screen,” Simmons said in the video. “Thank you for teaching me how to shoot a gun and teaching me all kinds of things about the ropes of police work.”

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Hundreds of friends and family gathered at Stroger Hospital after Curtis Wilson was shot in the 700 block of North Spaulding Avenue.

Curtis Wilson was known for hosting parties on his West Side block, and had been planning to spend Memorial Day evening barbecuing with neighbors.

“Everybody loved him,” Debra Wilson said of her stepson. “He was sweet as gold.”

She spoke in the parking lot of Stroger Hospital, surrounded by hundreds of people who gathered there Monday night after hearing Wilson had been shot dead.

Wilson, 40, was shot several times around 7:10 p.m. in the 700 block of North Spaulding Avenue when someone on the sidewalk fired at the car he was in, according to family members and Chicago police.

He was pronounced dead minutes later at Stroger.

At the corner of Spaulding and Chicago avenues, a silver Nissan Altima sat smashed against a building while police investigated. There were at least 13 bullet holes in the passenger side windows. Dozens of evidence markers littered the block.

“He was the type of person that threw good parties on the block. He had barbecues, treated the kids right, he was just a good person,” Debra Wilson said, noting that her stepson was sometimes called “Curty Man.”

She said she had seen her stepson only a few hours before the shooting and he was about to start grilling meat for the party. But she and Wilson’s father left the barbecue early, and that would be the last time she saw him.

“He just had a good heart, he was good to everybody,” she said.

Community activist Andrew Holmes implored the community to come together and share any information that could lead to the gunman’s arrest.

“This young man lost his life on Memorial Day. Memorial Day will never be the same for this family, so we pray for this family,” Holmes told the Sun-Times outside the hospital.

Holmes decried the violence that he says seems to go hand-in-hand with holidays in the city, depriving revelers a chance to enjoy time with their loved ones.

“The holiday weekends are not the same. The Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day. When you look at it, how can it be a holiday weekend when we have an increase in shootings?,” he said. “You can’t enjoy them.”

Wilson and two other people were killed and 34 others were wounded in shootings in Chicago over the weekend. He was the lone fatal shooting on the West Side.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

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For the first time in nearly a decade, the White Sox are in first place on Memorial Day! The bats are alive and the pitching has been excellent! The guys talk the first-place White Sox, the City Connect jerseys and much more!

The post GGTB A Chicago White Sox Podcast – Episode 103 -Taking Care Of Business first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

Chicago Blackhawks: 3 Minnesota Wild free agents would help by Vincent Parise

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(Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)

The Chicago Blackhawks had a tough season in 2020-21 but their fans are not nearly as disappointed as those of the Toronto Maple Leafs. They were one of the best teams in the NHL this season and had a 3-1 series lead over the Montreal Canadiens in the first round. Well, they allowed the Habs to come all the way back and win game seven by a final score of 3-1. There are going to be some massive changes to that organization over the summer.

There are some ways to take advantage of the Toronto Maple Leaf’s offseason.

This was as devastating of a loss as an NHL team has had in many years. Year after year, the Leafs continue to get better during the regular season and they just let it all go in the playoffs. They haven’t won a playoff series since 2004 and are 0-7 in the rounds. It is tough to watch from a hockey standpoint because the NHL would benefit so much from that team doing literally anything in the playoffs.

Instead, the Montreal Canadiens are moving on to play the Winnipeg Jets in what should be a very interesting matchup. The Leafs are going to go home yet again which leaves their incredible fanbase in shambles.

With players like Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Mitch Marner all making more than 10 million dollars against the cap, it is so hard to build a team around them. It is even worse when you add in Jake Muzzin, Morgan Rielly, and William Nylander’s contracts which aren’t cheap either. They are going to be allowing some nice free agents to leave this summer and the Blackhawks could take advantage. These are the three that are worth looking at:

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As DJ C, Chicago producer Jake Trussell has developed a gift for extracting the DNA from an eclectic variety of pop subgenres, then scrambling their nucleotides and recombining them—and his manipulations not only illuminate the hard-to-see strands connecting parallel musical histories but also encourage anyone with at least two brain cells to dance. Throughout the new Do Radly (Mashit), Trussell experiments with artful, ambitious hybrids: on one track he might blend smoky blues guitar and sparse, electrifying hip-hop drums spiced with dub effects (“Super Flyover”), while on another he’ll combine pinprick garage synths, mellow upright bass, solemn contemporary-classical strings, and a loopy keyboard that sounds like futuristic reggae (“Wellsweep”).…Read More

Chicago Blackhawks: 3 risky trade packages for Seth Jones by Vincent Parise

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(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

The Chicago Blackhawks have always sort of owned the Minnesota Wild on the ice. Well, there is a clear difference in the two teams now as the Wild have retooled their roster nicely and the Blackhawks continue to be horrible. Minnesota had one of the best seasons in the history of the franchise over in the West Division. The Hawks weren’t able to play them at all this year but it should be fun to see them reconnect in 2021-22.

The Chicago Blackhawks could turn to the Minnesota Wild for free agent help.

The Wild are one of those teams that might try to retain their free agents over the summer. They are going to be a really good team again next year and losing any of these guys isn’t going to hurt them. They are led by some of their young studs like Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Erikson Ek, and Jordan Greenway. They still have some savvy veterans like Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, and Jonas Brodin along with some young prospects on the way in Marco Rossi and Matt Boldy.

The Wild are in good hands, despite losing to the Vegas Golden Knights in seven games. A lot of people probably had the Golden Knights making it a short series but the Wild are sneaky good. If they make some solid moves this offseason, they might be better than good in 2021-22.

The Hawks are well behind them in terms of depth. They might try to improve it so they can compete in 2021-22 and there are a few Wild players that they can go after. Thinking that the Hawks should be buyers is a mistake but when they inevitably are, these are three Wild to go after:

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As the hit buddy-cop movie turns 35, Billy Crystal recalls having ‘the best time in Chicago’ with his co-stars — Gregory Hines and a gigantic mobile phone.

In the pantheon of memorable buddy-cop movies of the 1980s, the undisputed champions are “48 Hours” (1982) and “Lethal Weapon” (1987) and I’ll add “Beverly Hills Cop” (1984) to the mix because after all, Axel Foley spent an awful lot of time with Billy and Taggart, right? I’d round out my Top 5 from the decade with “Stakeout” (1987) — and the Chicago-set “Running Scared,” which was released 35 years ago this month and became a solid hit, with a gross of $38 million ($92 million in today’s dollars).

Back in the mid-1980s, comedian Billy Crystal and actor-dancer Gregory Hines might not have been the first two names you’d think of to play streetwise plainclothes Chicago police detectives, but Crystal and Hines had terrific rhythm as Danny Costanzo and Ray Hughes, respectively, constantly exchanging snappy banter even as they exchanged gunfire numerous times with aspiring criminal kingpin Julio Gonzales (Jimmy Smits, usually sporting a stylish scarf) and his seemingly endless supply of Uzi-wielding henchmen.

“I loved that movie,” Billy Crystal told me in a recent remote video chat. “Someone else brought it up to me the other day. … He said, ‘That was my movie of the ’80s.’ I had the best time in Chicago, and that was really my first movie role that was a starring part right after ‘Saturday Night Live.’ ”

The original script for “Running Scared” was about two older New York City cops on the verge of retirement who get caught up in the proverbial One Last Job before taking off the badges. It was refashioned as a Chicago buddy cop movie where the two leads are 16-year veterans but still in their 30s — young men facing burnout and actually turning in their 30-day notices as they plan to leave the Chicago winters behind and run a bar in Key West. But then, of course, they get caught up in that One Last Job.

“Originally it was going to be Gene Hackman and I think Paul Newman, playing the two retiring cops,” said Crystal. “Then the script was just sort of sitting around and [director] Peter Hyams said, ‘I wanna go with these two guys, I think they’d be great together.’ ”

Watching a Chicago-set film from 1986 in 2021 is like watching a Chicago-set film from 1951 in 1986 (math!), so yes, there are times when “Running Scared” seems dated. (Although I still love Michael McDonald’s “Sweet Freedom,” the signature hit from the movie.) People roller skating through the streets of Chicago (and Key West)! Cassette tapes! A break-dancing extra in a Cubs scarf adding local flavor! An opening credits sequence featuring two different glimpses of the old Sun-Times Building at 401 N. Wabash! A car phone the size of a construction brick!

“Ah, the mobile phone,” said Crystal. “They have a program at USC, I think it’s called ‘Movies We Love,’ and this young professor called me up, and Peter and I went to a screening of ‘Running Scared.’ When that phone comes up, everyone just laughs. It’s like in those World War II movies when [Crystal picks up an oversized water bottle]. ‘Hello Charlie Company, Charlie Company, we need some air cover!’ That’s how big that phone was.”

Kino Lorber

Rewatching “Running Scared,” I got a kick out of all the local sports visual cues, from Ray wearing a Walter Payton jersey and later a 1983 White Sox cap to Danny sporting a Blackhawks sweater and then a Cubs jersey under his winter coats. When Joe Pantoliano’s Snake, an informant with a shock of magenta-colored hair, eyes Danny’s baseball cap in the precinct station, Danny barks: “Don’t even think of putting my Cubs hat on that hair!”

“Running Scared” was partially filmed on sound stages in Hollywood and on location in Key West, but much of the lensing took place in Chicago, as evidenced by an abundance of outdoor locales, from Graceland Cemetery on the North Side to spots in the Loop to the Columbia Yacht Club to Uptown and Lake View. The practical effects and stunt driving are impressive throughout, with a highlight being a car chase that begins at O’Hare and winds up with Ray and Danny, and the vehicle they’re pursuing, literally driving on the L tracks before coming to a screeching, crashing halt at the LaSalle/Van Buren station.

Kino Lorber

Then there’s the grand finale, which takes place inside the gleaming new structure then known as the State of Illinois Center, with Ray crashing through the glass on a window washer’s rig, and henchmen disguised as Illinois State Troopers blasting away at the good guys. It’s not as chaotic as the Bluesmobile racing through Daley Plaza while pursued by dozens of state and city cops in 1980, but it’s pretty spectacular. Stunt personnel are flying everywhere in the climactic shootout.

“It was just so much fun making that movie, I miss Gregory Hines terribly,” Crystal said of his co-star, who died in 2003.

“Occasionally I’ll put it on and watch just as a way of visiting with Greg.”

“Running Scared” is available for purchase or rental on streaming services and on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.

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