Plainfield Cannabis Referendum Narrowly Passes: Unofficial Results

PLAINFIELD, IL — Will Plainfield's government allow cannabis businesses to operate within the village? Voters said yes in Tuesday's election, according to unofficial tallies.

The referendum, which the Village Board unanimously approved to add to the ballot in December, narrowly passed, with a difference of 3 percentage points.

In Will County, the question received 1,558 yes votes, or 50.5 percent, and 1,527 no votes, or 49.50 percent, according to the Will County Clerk's Office.

In the four Kendall County precincts that posed the question on ballots, 126 voters said yes and 107 said no — that's 54.08 percent in favor and 45.92 opposed, according to unofficial counts from the Kendall County Clerk's Office show.

Residents might be in favor of bringing legal marijuana to Plainfield, but the drug's fate is not yet secured. The advisory question was meant to provide insight and guidance on possible future ordinances or policies in town.

The cannabis referendum was the first of its kind the current Village Board voted to add to an election ballot.

"We have a duty as elected representatives to analyze all the things on our agenda," Mayor John Argoudelis said, Patch reported after the Dec. 19 Village Board meeting. "Most of the things don't lend themselves very well to referendums. Housing developments, these kinds of things, these are very sophisticated things [with] lots of facts, lots of studies. ... You can't convey all that detailed information to the public."

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Much like gaming, cannabis is a "general 'what do you want your community to look like' kind of idea," Argodelis said.

In neighboring Bolingbrook, trustees on the Village Board amended the zoning and village code in January 2022 to allow cannabis businesses, reversing course on its 2019 decision that prohibited the sale of marijuana within the village, Patch reported.