LAKEVIEW — Illinois’ first LGBTQ+- and POC-owned weed dispensary opens Friday in Northalsted.
Sway fills the former Town Hall Pub storefront at 3340 N. Halsted St. It’s co-owned by cannabis policy advocate Edie Moore; entrepreneur Kevin Hauswirth; and Art Johnston and Jose Pepe Peña, husbands and LGBTQ+ activists who co-own Sidetrack across the street.
The Northalsted shop is the first of at least three Sway dispensaries the group has planned, Johnston said.
“When you talk about things having sway, it means they have some influence,” Johnston told Block Club. “Not long ago, no one would be caught dead near a gay-owned business. Now we have a lot of sway in Illinois.”
The name is also meant to evoke feelings of dance and movement, Johnston said.
Inside, the dispensary is decorated with bright lights and vibrant colors that mirror the LGBTQ+ Pride flag.
A collage of LGBTQ+ rights activists and cannabis equity pioneers known as the “Wall of Heroes” is the lobby’s centerpiece. It features local figures like Danny Sotomayor, who emerged as one of Chicago’s fiercest advocates during the AIDS crisis; Vernita Gray, who was instrumental in advancing marriage equality in Illinois; and Gloria Allen, a Black transgender woman affectionately known as “Mama Gloria” who died in 2022.
The installation draws a line connecting early LGBTQ+ activism and weed decriminalization efforts by including figures like Harvey Milk, who was elected in 1977 as the first openly gay politician. Milk campaigned for Proposition W in 1978, which sought to stop arrests and prosecutions related to weed in California. Dennis Peron, one of the first to recognize weed’s health benefits for AIDS patients, is also featured.
“Early efforts to make pot legal included gay men in San Francisco whose friends and lovers were sick with HIV,” Johnston said. “There was a strong movement among gay men and friends of the community to provide those with HIV with the healing benefits of marijuana.”
The dispensary will source its products from as many minority- and women-owned businesses as possible, Hauswirth said.
As Sway looks to open additional locations, its owners are also looking to increase access to legal weed for communities that were most affected by its criminalization, Moore said. That means looking to neighborhoods on the South Side where weed dispensaries are sparse.
“The communities that were most affected by its criminalization are the ones that don’t have any dispensaries in them,” Moore said. “I’m hoping to change that.”
Plans for Sway were first presented last year and largely met with positive feedback from neighbors. Some residents said during a March 2023 community meeting they would feel safer shopping for weed in the LGBTQ+ community of Northalsted. The nearest other dispensary is Sunnyside at 3524 N. Clark St. in Wrigleyville.
Ald. Bennett Lawson (44th) also threw in early support for the proposal.
“We’ve had other dispensaries on Clark Street in two locations and it ran very well,” Lawson said during the 2023 meeting. “Given the type of traffic that we’ve seen and the size and safety enhancements, we think this is probably going to work here.”
The dispensary replaces Town Hall Pub, a long-standing dive bar that closed in 2021 after its owner died of COVID-19.
Town Hall Pub opened in 1971 at the southwest corner of Halsted and Addison streets, eventually moving to a storefront across from Sidetrack. It was named after the 19th District police station that used to sit at the northwest corner of that intersection and was originally a cop bar, Johnston said.
“That connection feels so important because the entire history of marijuana is filled with police and arrest issues,” Johnston said. “It feels appropriate that we are in a space that was originally a cop bar, but we’ve flipped it.”
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