For the last decade or so, I’ve been waging what you might call a two-front journalistic war on TIFs and reefer.
OK, so I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking . . .
That’s why, over the years, various mayors have gotten away with doing things like taking TIF money intended to build a hotel in the South Loop and using it to fix up Navy Pier, which, as I never tire of pointing out, is neither blighted nor a community.
The funding from TIF, the economic development program intended to benefit low-income communities, was largely going to rich white ones. And the law against marijuana was mainly enforced on Black people.
That got everyone’s attention, as city and state officials pointed out that they were depending on tax revenue from the sale of legal weed.
“This is a very, very expensive business to get involved with,” Lightfoot said. “The basics to be a cultivator requires about a $13 million to $15 million investment. There are not a lot of people that have that, particularly in a market that a lot of banks and traditional lenders won’t touch.”
