Is Mayor 6.6 that out of touch?
There are days when you watch Brandon Johnson run this city and you genuinely have to ask yourself: what reality is he living in?
Now let me be clear before the outrage brigade hyperventilates — it is not being alleged the mayor is literally high. I have no idea what he does in his personal life. But when you look at the policy priorities coming out of City Hall, you can’t help but wonder whether someone there has been sampling the merchandise.
The latest exhibit in this ongoing case study of municipal detachment? Johnson’s veto of an ordinance that would have restricted the sale of hemp-derived THC products in unlicensed Chicago stores.
The City Council passed the measure 32–16. It would have limited intoxicating hemp products — gummies, vapes, drinks — to licensed sellers instead of allowing every corner gas station and vape shop to function as a quasi-dispensary. It fell two votes short of a veto-proof majority.
And Mayor 6.6 shut it down.
Why? Because, apparently, Chicago needs more vice.
The vice economy
Take a look at the trajectory.
We now have:
- A permanent downtown casino
- Legal marijuana dispensaries across major corridors
- Sports betting in your pocket 24/7
- Street-level drug dealing that remains inconsistently enforced
- Retail theft that merchants routinely say is barely prosecuted
- Gang activity that still warps entire neighborhoods
And now — thanks to the veto — Delta-8 gummies next to the Slim Jims at the 7-Eleven.
Is this the economic development blueprint? If you can’t fill office towers, fill people with THC?
Chicago once built railroads, steel mills, skyscrapers, insurance empires, futures exchanges — the industrial and financial muscle of the Midwest.
Now we’re becoming the Midwest’s convenience store dispensary.
The “City of Big Shoulders” is turning into the City of Big Shoulders Shrugging.
The hard numbers they don’t want to talk about
Let’s inject some reality into this haze.
Downtown office vacancy in Chicago is hovering around 24 to 25 percent, depending on the brokerage. That’s near historic highs. Older Class B and C buildings are in even worse shape once you factor in subleases and shadow inventory.
One Loop office tower near Willis Tower sold at roughly a 90 percent discount from its previous valuation. That’s not a market adjustment. That’s cardiac arrest.
When commercial values collapse, property tax pressure shifts. Homeowners and small businesses get squeezed.
Now let’s talk population.
Chicago’s official 2020 Census population was about 2.74 million. By 2023, Census Bureau estimates placed the city at roughly 2.66 million — a decline of about 75,000 to 80,000 residents over three years.
A loss of roughly 3 percent of your population in three years is not a rounding error. It’s a signal.
Cook County overall has seen sustained out-migration, particularly among middle-income taxpayers. Families with options are leaving. Businesses are cautious.
And in this context, City Hall’s big fight is preserving hemp gummy distribution.
Protecting kids — or protecting a narrative?
Supporters of the ordinance weren’t Puritans. They raised straightforward concerns:
- Intoxicating hemp products packaged like candy
- Weak age verification standards
- A regulatory loophole that lets psychoactive products bypass the stricter controls imposed on licensed marijuana operators
Licensed cannabis companies, which operate under heavy taxation and compliance costs, supported tightening the rules. Their argument: hemp-derived THC products create unfair competition while escaping equivalent oversight.
Johnson vetoed the ordinance anyway, citing potential job losses — the administration estimated up to 10,000 positions could be affected — and “equity” concerns.
Equity.
The argument goes like this: because minority entrepreneurs were largely frozen out of Illinois’ original cannabis licensing structure, restricting hemp sales would “concentrate” the market in the hands of larger operators.
Here’s a question no one seems eager to answer:
Is saturating neighborhoods with intoxicants really a coherent equity strategy?
If your solution to structural barriers in one regulated industry is to loosen oversight in another, that’s not equity. That’s improvisation.
The pattern of priorities
This hemp veto doesn’t exist in isolation.
The Bears continue exploring options outside Chicago, including sites in northwest Indiana. Whether they ultimately move or not, the fact that one of the NFL’s marquee franchises feels compelled to shop across state lines says something.
Downtown foot traffic remains below pre-pandemic levels in many corridors. CTA ridership is still well off 2019 highs. Michigan Avenue retail has struggled with vacancies and perception issues.
Chicago faces tens of billions of dollars in long-term pension liabilities. Watchdog groups have pegged the structural fiscal hole far deeper than annual headline deficits suggest.
And yet, the mayor expends political capital defending gas-station THC.
It’s not that hemp policy doesn’t matter. It’s that it feels absurdly misaligned with the scale of Chicago’s challenges.
Governing on fumes
When cities lose their productive base — industry, corporate headquarters, stable middle-class households — they often pivot toward easier revenue streams.
Gambling.
Cannabis.
Sin taxes.
Quick cash instead of long-term growth.
Chicago is flirting with that model.
Instead of a relentless focus on restoring commercial confidence, streamlining permitting, aggressively enforcing quality-of-life laws, and stabilizing the tax base, we get a veto preserving retail intoxicants.
Relax. Have a gummy. Don’t worry about pension math.
That’s not strategy. That’s sedation.
The cultural signal
Adults have the right to make their own choices. I’m not calling for a return to Prohibition.
But cities send signals about what they value.
Do we want to be known as:
- A global logistics powerhouse?
- A Midwestern innovation hub?
- A manufacturing renaissance city?
Or the easiest place in the region to access loosely regulated THC?
When enforcement against street-level drug activity remains inconsistent in parts of the city, when youth violence continues to scar neighborhoods, when repeat offenders cycle through an overwhelmed system — expanding lightly regulated intoxicant sales is at least worth scrutinizing.
At some point, permissiveness stops being compassion and starts looking like abdication.
Mayor 6.6 and the reality gap
Johnson’s approval numbers hover where they hover for a reason. Many Chicagoans sense a widening gap between rhetoric and reality.
Chicago lost roughly 75,000 to 80,000 residents between 2020 and 2023.
Downtown vacancy sits around 25 percent.
Office towers are selling for pennies on the dollar.
The tax base is strained.
Major employers remain cautious.
The Bears are flirting with Indiana.
And the mayor’s signature stand this month is making sure hemp dealers stay open for business.
Is he high?
Again, I’m not alleging that.
But if City Hall appears intoxicated by ideology while the city wrestles with fiscal strain, population drift, and commercial collapse, that perception didn’t come from nowhere.
Chicago deserves leadership focused on growth, safety, and solvency.
Instead, we get gummies.
That’s not bold governance.
That’s governing on fumes — and hoping nobody notices the smoke.
