McCarthy was on hand as MOCA pitched their plan to River North Residents at a River North Residents Association Wednesday. McCarthy later ran for mayor in 2019, finishing 10th in a crowd of 14 candidates. McCarthy served as Chicago’s top cop from 2011-2015 before being fired by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel after the release of a video showing Chicago Police officer Jason VanDyke fatally shooting Laquan McDonald. Ohio St., located a few blocks from where McCarthy lives. MOCA Modern Cannabis, which is in a race with three other companies to open a dispensary in a small area of River North, brought McCarthy on as a security consultant to advise on measures for their planned dispensary at 216 W. and mayoral candidate Garry McCarthy has a new gig: Security consultant to a weed company. "We definitely made significant changes after January.LOGAN SQUARE - Former Chicago Police Supt. "Back in June, when a lot of dispensaries had break-ins during the protests, and some of the looting that took place, knock on wood, ours didn't," he noted. The brick Ohio Street building was already substantial, but Marks noted the addition of decorative metal screens across the front, metal gates, and steel plates in other spots. "We're much more secure and strong now than we were then," he said. Marks said his company learned several lessons from the break-in, and have applied that knowledge to the opening of the Ohio Street store. "It is not a permanent status, and it can be changed if more information is made available." "That can happen for a variety of reasons, including detectives exhausting all leads," that spokesman said by email. "Honestly, we don't have any specific suspicions of who it could be."Ī spokesman for Chicago Police told NBC 5 that the investigation is classified as "suspended." "I think it's still unsolved-we're still waiting to hear if anything more comes from it, but at the moment we haven't heard any developments for a little while," he said. On Thursday, Doug Marks told NBC 5 the company has learned no more about the burglary from police.
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"If one security company sets up your entire system, no matter how reputable they are and how much you pay them, there's going to be one person at least, besides you, who knows how to undo that system," Marks said.Ĭompany officials later said they were only suggesting that someone with an intimate knowledge of security systems must have been involved. The official police report, obtained by NBC 5 Investigates, indicated the thieves entered the dispensary with a keycard, deactivated the alarm system, and took down the hard drive which stored security video before entering the basement vault using a dumbwaiter.Īt a public hearing in the spring, CEO Danny Marks suggested he was suspicious of contractors outside his company. The company's first location in Logan Square was burglarized in early January, just five days after recreational pot was legalized in Illinois.Īt the time, police indicated the heist, which they placed at $200,000, was an inside job. "For it to truly be accepted across the board, I think it needs to be at the point where we want to take a credit card, we can take a credit card."įor MOCA, the entry into recreational cannabis has been a challenging one. "I think from a public standpoint, you never see anything except people excited and as diverse a customer base as you can possibly imagine," he said. Marks points to the money challenges as the largest stumbling block to marijuana becoming a truly mainstream industry.įamily Seeks Answers After ‘The Funnel Cake Man' Shot and Killed In what is still a largely cash-only business, MOCA does accept debit cards at the Ohio Street location. "So people place their orders online, then reserve a specific time slot." "Right now we do primarily online ordering," Marks told NBC 5. The space is bright and modern, featuring one counter where customers pay, and a second for picking up their products. That may change when Cresco's Sunnyside location on Clark Street expands later this year. "That shows there's been a lot of progress."Īt least for now, the location at 216 W. "You get off at Ohio street and there's this big dispensary saying, 'now open,'" said MOCA's principal officer Doug Marks.
Perhaps it is a testimonial to the now-mainstream nature of cannabis in Illinois, that the latest dispensary in Chicago is just a stone's throw from the Ohio street exit ramp into downtown.