Thank you.
I'm sorry, Silver.
And so, why do you keep it in this moment?
We didn't know if we could be expressing our arguments towards the goal.
To one point, we worked together.
Yes, we the people.
That's why we the people.
That means all of us.
No matter what your argument is, all of us.
We will begin with a roll call to establish quorum.
Silverstein is here.
Vice Chair Chico.
Alderman Cardona.
Present.
Alderman Waxback.
Alderman Villegas.
Alderman Mitz.
Alderman Sposato.
Present.
Alderman Gardner.
Present.
Alderman Martin.
Present.
Did I miss anybody?
Okay.
We have nine members present.
We have a quorum.
We do have some members on virtually.
Alderman Lawson, Moore, Napolitano, and Coleman.
Napolitano is present.
Vice Chair Chico makes a motion to include them as part of the quorum.
All in favor?
Any opposed?
from the opinion of the chairs.
The eyes have it.
Alderman Moore, are you here?
Thank you, Chairman.
Yes, I am.
Alderman Lawson?
Yes, thank you, Chair.
Alderman Napolitano?
Present.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
And Alderman Coleman?
Okay, we'll check back with her later.
At this time,
we will begin the public comment period.
The period is limited to 30 minutes.
Out of respect to everyone's time, each speaker is limited to three minutes.
First speaker is Taiwan Sims.
Good morning, committee.
So yesterday, well, I was just, what, notified by the sergeant at arms that if I made an
outburst or if there was one singular outburst and not be put out of this room waste of time
and if y'all feel that it was an outburst I feel it was a grave disrespect and since we are
represented by the black caucus though it seemed like every individual that represented that caucus
spoke up for that individual yesterday so now we have two noted races or I guess representatives
that will exhibit racist tendencies, ideology, or whatever it is, sitting in the committee.
So how does that represent the fullness of Chicago, all 77 wards, or communities, whatever
it is?
Because it's Silverstein, Miss Silverstein, Deborah Silverstein.
If this was a Jewish individual, if this was a degradation to your community, this whole
building would have came down.
Or the LGBT community, or whatever.
But since it's just the black Americans,
like Nicholas Spada can dress up as a banana
and wrangle small children in the street to take a picture.
Well, whatever his name, I'm sorry.
But it's reckless.
It's a waste of time.
You should be sitting up at the podium.
But then it's an outburst.
What representation do we have?
Because black Americans consume, Americans consume here,
two point some trillion dollars attributed to the what?
This annually.
But still we got a voice, no voice.
And y'all wonder why, what Mr. Blakemore you say,
black representation in high places but not representing us.
Actually giving weight or light over to those individuals who might kick us down.
So what? Kick me out of the room for the outbursts, but I'm outraged that there's no representation
for us. And once again, Ms. Silverstein, that was a, look, I worked at Nordstrom, real quick
story, I worked at Nordstrom's, that was a woman who came in and just because of the
exhibit, for what is it, for the menorah, well the menorah was just a little bit off
in the exhibit. She went and complained. Do you know that reverberated through the whole
town center for more than a week until they did exactly what she wanted.
And I think just it was the color of the blue that was off just a little bit.
That's exemplary of what?
A collective thought of people.
But y'all represent us as a collective in constituency.
So that man don't get to sit up there, but hey, we got a caucus that don't speak up for
us.
It's a waste of time.
Next speaker is George Blakemore.
Thank you for not having another meeting at the same time and the same date.
Thank you. Also, I'm reading and reading is fundamental.
Talking about tows and cannibals,
that's a reefer and alcohol.
Now, and Walter Burnett's voice,
I will challenge you to see how many licensed,
liquor license that black people have.
How many liquor license?
we're not talking about cannibal license
we're talking about how many
legalized
racism is a lie
that's why it's very very
important
for a man like
Mr. Blakemore to show up
and to
speak up on behalf
of the black community
not Anta Bill
but George Blakemore
racism
is alive. Now, black people can't even get
liquor license. And now they're coming to the body
for hemp or marijuana license.
So it seems like to me it is a conspiracy
against black people.
Because we have poor
black leadership.
We have black faces in high places.
But the big-head white man runs this system.
And this system is all blue.
You're giving the black, the blues, all blue.
What do you mean by all blue, Mr. Blake?
So, it's something evil here.
It's something American here.
What is this American here?
Racism.
Enslaving black people into the Americas.
The South America, Central America, North America.
And the game goes on.
I can't hardly walk.
I'm old.
I'm an old black man.
Can't hardly walk.
sick, dying.
Everybody here
is going to die too.
All of y'all.
And things have to change.
And the only way they're going to change
is black folks got to
stand up and speak up
and act up under the
head of black people.
This is
not a democracy.
I'm not
depending on M.A.M.
Thank you.
There are no more speakers today.
This concludes our public comment, period.
We are now going to get started on today's agenda.
We have eight items on the agenda.
Okay, Mr. Blakemore, thank you.
Thank you.
The first item on the agenda is the approval of the Rule 45 reports for March 2025, which were sent out to the committee.
Alderman Sposato moves to approve the Rule 45 reports.
All in favor, say aye.
Any opposed?
In the opinion of the chairs, the ayes have it.
The reports are approved.
the next item is 02024-0012277 a substitute ordinance to amend chapter 4-227 of the
municipal code regarding the vehicular towing fees penalties and obligations
alderman waxback moves to accept the substitute all in favor any opposed in the opinion of the
the chairs, the ayes have it, the substitute ordinance before us. The chair recognizes
Alderman Villegas and I believe he has some expert witnesses here to testify as well.
No.
There we go.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning, Chairwoman, members of the committee.
This is an ordinance, a substitute ordinance negotiated with BACP as well as CPD in a continuation
of trying to regulate and bring into compliance an industry that has taken advantage of residents
in the city of Chicago, businesses in the city of Chicago, and impose a public safety
issues across the city. The towing industry, our hands are a little tied because of the fact that
there's some federal exemptions as well as the IC, the Illinois Commerce Commission, has oversight
of an industry. However, the ICC does not have enough staff in order to regulate this industry
and put actually boots on the ground throughout the state of Illinois.
And so our first iteration of an ordinance passed a couple, two, three years ago.
And it was our first attempt.
We're calling that Rogue Towing 1.0.
And so the ordinance that we have before you is Rogue Towing 2.0
and really putting a little bit more teeth and hearing from the industry
as it relates to what we did the first time and what we need to do
and to improve the existing ordinance
and allow for an industry that, again,
that has just run rampant throughout the city
and taking advantage of consumers
as well as taking advantage of companies,
but also as opposed to public safety,
driving across the city in pursuit of accidents
with disregard to any type of laws.
And so with me this morning,
I have Jonathan Leach,
who's a consultant who represents Avis.
Also, John O'Donnell, who represents the Enterprise Mobility.
And then also, Ms. Kelly, who represents the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
And I would also mention that it's not just these associations or organizations that are supportive of it.
It's actually the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the American Trucking Association,
the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, Enterprise Mobility, as I stated, Illinois Chamber of Commerce,
Illinois Manufacturers Association, the Illinois Retail Merchants Association,
the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, and the National Insurance of Crime Bureau.
And then locally here, as I stated, BACP as well as CPD helped me craft this language
in order to get to a spot where they're comfortable with, but also we can actually implement.
And so a couple of points.
It improves and expands on the road towing ordinance
that passed a few years ago,
which requires that all towers be licensed by the city.
It also encourages all tole companies
to accept multiple forms of payment except credit cards.
If they only accept cash,
the company's required to have an ATM on site.
So I want you to understand this for a second.
Here's an industry that the road towers deal in cash.
So, for example, if you're a rental car company and your vehicle gets towed and you're having a hard time finding it,
and I'll let the folks here testify about some of the stories, but this is a story that I heard before.
And to try to get their vehicle back, they had to pay $11,000 in cash.
And I want you to think about the rental car companies, which are Fortune 500 companies,
And think about the petty cash they have on hand to go to a tow shop in order to pay cash.
They don't have that.
And so they actually have to use their legitimate tow truck companies to go pay cash and then have them invoice the Fortune 500 rental car company in order to be paid back that cost for the tow.
and so we're having the same thing with consumers as their vehicles being towed
thousands of dollars people predatory people take being taken advantage of now
um we've hovered between one and two in the country with this issue philadelphia has been
number one once in a while well unfortunately this year we're number one and so this is an
industry that we've got to finally get our hands around. And I think now with this ordinance,
it would allow for the ability for CPD to impound and tow the tow trucks that are causing these
issues. Also, it contains a private right of action clause, which will allow victims of illegal
tows to sue the rogue towers for damages. So we're putting some teeth behind this in order to make
sure that we can finally address this issue of rogue towers. But I'm not here saying that this
is the silver bullet. There may be a rogue towing 3.0 as we continue to see these folks
that are taking advantage of consumers. Public safety issue continue. We may have to come
back. But we're going to continue to try to flush out the bad actors in this space and
work with the folks that really want to participate and do the legal toes. So first, from my side,
Before we answer any questions, if that's okay, Madam Chair, I'd rather have my panel.
We'll have Ms. Kelly from the American Property Casualty Insurance Association say a couple of words.
Thank you so much.
Good morning.
Thank you, Chairwoman Silverstein and members of the committee.
My name is Brooke Kelly, and I'm the Assistant Vice President for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, APCIA.
APCIA is the primary trade association for home, auto, and business insurers.
For far too long, vehicle owners in Chicago have been victimized by unscrupulous vehicle
towing companies when they are most vulnerable, especially at the scene of an accident.
Insurers see the results firsthand as they assist policyholders with their claims following
the accident.
The city has taken positive steps to rein in these bad actors, and we thank Alderman
Viegas for all the years working with us on this and making this a priority. But more can be done,
which is why APCIA urges the committee to support and enact the proposed ordinance aimed at
addressing rogue towing in Chicago. A recent survey that Alderman Viegas was referencing
conducted by APCIA members named Chicago as one of the most problematic cities for towing issues.
One APCIA member reports that in 2023, they encountered 64 incidents of predatory towing practices in Chicago with the charges of over $333,000.
I'm going to give a couple of examples of the situations that Chicago motorists and their insurers deal with on a daily basis.
Our insured 2009 Toyota Prius was hit while parked.
A male approached her before police arrived and stated he worked for a tow company and would call them to come tow the vehicle.
When the tow company arrived, she requested that they take it to the Toyota dealership.
They agreed.
Her vehicle never arrived.
She had to report her vehicle stolen because the tow company would no longer answer her calls.
When they finally answered ours, the insurance company, they demanded $6,000 cash only to release the car.
Here's another example.
release the vehicle. Another example, the tow company arrived at the same time the police arrived,
so the insured assumed that they were with the police. When the tower handed the insured the
paper to sign for authorization to tow, it was folded in half, concealing the charges. They did
not perform half the services billed for. The company demanded $12,000 in cash to release the
car. With these situations, a vehicle owner or their insured have little leverage to negotiate
a more reasonable charge. Each day the vehicle is held, the charges increase, and the process
of getting the car repaired and the insurance claim resolved is delayed. Often there is little
recourse to pay to recover the vehicle. Those excessive charges paid by insurers are then
reflected in what we pay for auto insurance premiums. APCIA believes that the proposed
ordinance is another important step towards addressing rogue towers and abusive towing
practices in the city of chicago most importantly the ordinance contains enforcement mechanisms
fines and impoundments of vehicles that will have powerful deterrent effect on those that would take
advantage of drivers in the city of chicago apcia supports uh the proposed ordinance and urges you
to you and your fellow committee members to support and vote for the enact enactment of
this crucial consumer protection oriented ordinance thank you for your time this morning
Thank you, Ms. Kelly. Madam Chair, my next speaker is Mr. O'Donnell from Enterprise Mobility.
Good morning. I just want to thank the committee for hearing this important ordinance and thank
the Alderman for continuing to work on this issue over the last five years. As the Alderman stated,
we have the number one rogue towing issue in the country. When I think back, you know,
five years ago when we started this, it was the passage of the original licensing ordinance in May
of 21. That was a really important first step to addressing this issue. It was allowing the
legitimate toers in the city to get a license through BACP and tow. And we work with those
tow companies every day, all day, and we want to continue to support the good toers. This is not
legislation that has, does address or in any way negatively impact the legitimate tow companies
that tow here in Chicago. There's hundreds that have signed up and that participate in the process
the right way. However, I can report that over the last 18 months, we've had our companies,
Enterprise, National, and Alamo Renicar, have been victimized by 92 different unlicensed
rogue tow companies, so many of which have closed their doors and then reopened,
So if they get a fine by BACP, it's cheaper for them to shut their doors and to reopen under a different name and a new entity to avoid some of the challenges of paying fines and going through any sort of administrative hearings process as it relates to towing and fines.
So 92 different companies.
And we kept track and a list to support that.
over 72 percent of our customers that that rent vehicles live and work here in the city of chicago
and they're taken taken advantage of on a frequent basis by rogue towers typically
as stated by kelly just after an accident when they're the most vulnerable
we believe this ordinance will give the bacp and cpd law enforcement the ability to reduce this
issue make our streets safer and allow legitimate tow companies to help accidents seen victims
like i said the committee addressed this back in may of 2021 by taking the first step of creating
a licensing structure this is as the alderman referenced kind of 2.0 and this allows for cpd
to have enforcement and to actually take the tow trucks off the street that are doing this
unlicensed towing and victimizing the the residents and citizens of chicago we ask for your support
on this important ordinance and certainly any questions that you may have we're open to that
thank you thank you madam chair my final speaker is thank you sir jonathan leach with the representing
good morning um thank you madam chair vice chair committee and uh alderman viegas for
uh bringing forward this ordinance i represent avis budget group um we wholeheartedly support
the ordinance looking for this committee's vote in favor of it this is a
significant and I you know Kelly and John touched on a lot of it just want to
make a couple points here this is a significant public safety and consumer
related issue well and as John said while there are many reputable and law
abiding tow companies the bad actors are truly bad Avis budget group is
concerned that having its employees, many of which are Chicago residents, interact with these rogue
tow companies can put its team in difficult circumstances as these rogue tow companies
often demand that Avis Budget Group pay for services it does not receive to get its vehicles
back. These actions and unwarranted fees for the vehicles in turn adversely affect consumers.
This ordinance is a positive step forward.
Along with this ordinance, we also believe that more needs to be done to prevent rogue operators from the shell game of changing company names after they have an enforcement proceeding brought against them, as John touched on.
Enforcement of this ordinance and any other resources available to the law enforcement and regulatory community needs to be carried out to put the bad actors out of business permanently.
Again, thank you for your time, and we respectfully request you support this ordinance.
Thank you.
First of all, I want to recognize Alderman Conway for a quorum, and we're going to take questions by committee, and we're going to have you.
Oh, well, first I was just going to say recognize me for quorum, but beyond that, I just want to thank Chairman Villegas as well as the witnesses for bringing forth what is clearly a good government ordinance that will crack down on a problem that has festered for decades in this city.
And that's so thank all of you for bringing this forward. That's all I have, Madam Chairwoman.
Thank you.
Alderman Cardona.
Thank you. Thank you, Chairwoman.
My question, probably you could answer this, Alderman Villegas or Enterprise.
Is there a mechanism for BACP for these companies that close their doors and then reopen, you know, closing the license and reopening the licensing?
Is there a mechanism to recognize who they are?
So when they do open another license, that they won't get that license for towing?
Great question.
There's kind of a couple of parts to that.
But the first part is they'd have to be licensed.
We find that a lot of the road tow companies, unfortunately, don't even possess a license or don't actively get one.
What ends up happening is after the fact, when CPD is working with a lot of the folks that are victimized by this, they'll show up and they'll issue a fine.
And so that's when a lot of times we see, instead of paying the fine through the administrative
hearings process, they have a right to challenge that, go to the administrative hearings process
and through BACP.
And then ultimately, that's when they change names so they don't even have to pay the fines.
So the challenge becomes the licensing ordinance that was passed four years ago is really
important because it really identifies the good towers.
And there's a lot of them.
They do great work here in the city of Chicago.
It's the bad ones that aren't getting licensed.
So what happens, what this new ordinance does, this really kind of pinpoints and directly looks at those individuals that are towing without a license and gives CPD some enforcement tools that they don't have today to try to stop that from continuing to happen.
So I think that's how you kind of stop the shell game, as Mr. Leach was talking about, allowing them to just shut their name down, avoid the fines, avoid the penalties, and then reopen under a different name.
And that's what I think what the purpose and goal of this is, is to try to stop that shell game. And it gives law enforcement really some teeth, which they don't have today, which a lot of the folks that we deal with in law enforcement have been asking this for quite some time. So thank you.
Thank you for that. And I thank Alderman Villegas for bringing this because, like myself, I hear stories of those bad actors who do rogue towing, and especially those who are being, I mean, it's basically bribing them to pay more to get their car when it actually is their car.
But thank you for bringing this up and hopefully, well, I know this will pass and we can start doing great, great work here with CPD, especially getting rid of these rogue towing companies.
Thank you.
Otto on Metz.
Thank you, Madam Chairman, and good morning to all of you.
I appreciate you and your work that you've done on the
towing ordinance, but I just found out it was
a lot more that we need to do.
And I'm really, I think I mentioned this before
in our committee meeting about a bad actor
in my ward.
I have a question, how are they able
to keep these cars, and they're unnoticed.
And I just got out of a situation last week
that I'm still dealing with with a towing company.
Bad actor.
And they towed 20 to 30 cars.
And if the city can allow folks putting up this 10
with the high fence, with the barbed wire around it.
That should be a red flag there, and I can't see anything.
I can't go over it.
And they held these cars,
and the resident constituents started coming in my office.
Lady come in.
She's pregnant.
They done had a car for four months.
She can't get it back.
she almost ready to deliver
don't know how she gonna get to it
and she was stressed out
working with BCAP
we
they couldn't even get the car back
even though they knew what the car was
so that was a loophole
I want to find out
what are we doing
to be able to repossess
these cars back legally
because something was missing
The police couldn't go in and get the car because it wasn't in their law.
BACP was there and found out a loophole.
I don't know if you talked to them.
But not only cars from car accident, about stolen cars.
Three of them come out of Schaumburg.
BMWs, you know what I mean?
Lexus, motorcycles.
When they had a racket, I went over and I was gladly with BACP to put the sign up.
You know the yellow sticker?
The residents were glad.
And they said it's been going on for like four years.
And I'm thinking, how long could you operate without somebody noticing this?
So maybe in order for them to keep these cars somewhere, somebody got to know something.
So what it is, it's in the plant manufacturing district, and I guess the realtor, the owner,
even though the city was on them and the police were locking them up, then they'll go and
try to rent to a different group.
So they were running the place out.
Just so it happened, they were able to catch them last week.
And they're working, even though they had shut the whole building down and wasn't supposed to be.
And they was able to repossess these cars and get these folks their car back to them.
I guess there's something there.
And I was wondering if BCAP was here, what we need to do to tighten up even more.
It's just an incident.
To me, that's crazy.
You know, I got in an accident.
Or something needs to be on these tow trucks that allow the public to know what's legal and what's not legal.
So, Alderman Metz, first of all, thank you.
We worked on this when you were the chair of the License Committee on 2021.
Again, this is an evolving document ordinance that's continuing to figure out where there's loopholes to try to close them.
So the first step was to get them licensed so that we know who are the good actors and who are the bad actors.
And so an example that you provided, if when a constituent comes forward and says, hey, there's this new place here and they got all these vehicles here.
That's like the red flag that you mentioned where BACP should go out there and figure out, hey, are you guys licensed?
Because you have to be licensed in the city of Chicago.
your lot has to be licensed as well and so BACP has that part the enforcement portions where we
were lacking and what this ordinance does is allow for CPD to to go ahead and tow to towers
tow these tow trucks that are acting in in a in a in a in a manner that's not conducive to
good good governance and so so again this is another step in that they also the right of
private action, where now you have this entity that's there, businesses as well as consumers
can go ahead and take legal action against these entities.
But the biggest issue that we've been facing as a local municipality is that the ICC, the
Illinois Commerce Commission, has oversight.
And then also there's federal exemptions as well for the towing industry.
So we're working, all of us are working collaboratively with our partners in the state to notify
the General Assembly and the governor's office that ICC needs to have a better handle around
this issue.
And then also with our federal partners as well to talk about this rogue issue.
Because again, Chicago is not the only city that's being impacted by this.
We just happen to be number one in the country.
But this is an issue that New York, Philadelphia, LA are also having these issues.
And so we're all talking to the members at the federal level, state level, and then here
locally, we're doing what we can because there are some preemptions that we have to deal with.
But BACP and CPD, we're at the table around the crafting of this legislation, and we're going to
move forward with it if this passes. And then if they determine that they need more enforcement
tools, we'll be back here again for 3.0 until we try to get rid of this issue. I don't mind being
number one for tourism, number one for business relocations, but I don't want to be number one
for rogue towers in the country.
Thank you.
I want to acknowledge Alderman O'Shea is here for quorum.
Alderman Sposado.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Am I addressing you, Madam Chair,
or am I addressing our speakers?
Just more or less.
Do you have a question?
No, it's more or less a statement.
So, okay.
It's easier for me to look that way.
That's fine.
Okay, thank you.
there's four of us in this meeting that know a lot about this and that's
Alderman Napolitano,
Garner Chico and myself.
You guys don't really know the half of it to tell you the truth.
These guys are maniacs racing,
blowing red lights,
cutting people off.
They're dangerous people.
But like you said,
we do know a lot,
a lot of good actors and some really,
really bad ones.
And there's some violent scenes we've been at with the tow truck drivers
fighting with each other.
But yeah,
this is a,
I thought I thought I'm talking loud enough.
But yeah, I 100% support this.
We need to do something with these people.
I kind of wish BACP would be here to hear their plan, how to deal with these people.
But I'm sure I'm sure Ivan has a good plan what to do with these.
I don't know what to refer to him as.
They're just bad people.
So and the worst part is people that rent cars, when those get hit and they take them,
I don't really know who who's responsible, who who holds the bag for that.
I guess I have a I do have a question for you.
So somebody rents your car, they tow it.
Is the person that rented the car left holding the bag, or is your company holding the bag on this?
Combination of both.
We've seen them tow when the car's not on rent, so we're left holding the bag there.
Then there's some individuals that rent that have insurance, and that would be Brooke holding the bag.
And then if it's a situation where they purchased our damage waiver, then we're left holding that bag again.
and then if it's a situation where they didn't and they don't have insurance then it could be that
individual left holding that bag so there's a lot of buckets um and so yeah that's it's it creates a
challenge for a lot of different people okay well this is a no-brainer i encourage all my
colleagues to support this uh like i say four of us here know firsthand the type of people that
we're dealing with here but thanks for bringing this forward thank you madam chair thank you
Any other questions?
I'm sure you have Alderman Moore has his hand up.
Oh, Alderman Moore.
Thank you, Chairman.
And thank you, Chairman Villegas, for bringing this ordinance.
I just heard somebody say they wish BACP was there.
So I'm assuming no one was there because my question is, and I don't know if this would take place in zoning or BACP,
where people have these companies in residential areas where they are, like Alderman Mitt said, putting up these high fences.
But I'm more concerned about residential areas. So I'd like to move to the next step.
I don't know if it would be a BACP or zoning that these tow companies cannot be in residential communities.
So I want to, if BACP is there, they can give me some feedback on that.
Because if so, I can probably work with Chairman Villegas if it's zoning to bring an ordinance to zoning to limit them from, you know, being in residential areas.
So I just I wanted some feedback on that from someone.
So Alderman Moore, BACP is not here.
However, they are in tune with what's going on around this issue and be more than happy to advise you on what steps, whether legislatively or from a permitting licensing process.
Alderman Moore, we can we can try to get your questions answered.
Through BAC.
OK, thank you. And again, Chairman Villegas, thank you so much for bringing this and I fully support it.
And I want to move to that next step to limit these companies in residential areas.
Okay.
I believe Alderman Mitz wanted to follow up.
Yes.
Alderman Moore, point of information.
In my ward, even though it's a planned manufacturing district, residents were grandfathered in when they craft out the planned manufacturing,
which left those residents there to have to endure with it.
I don't think that it was zoned.
They were already there when we craft out the PMDs in the city.
Yeah, I understand what you're saying.
But in my ward, I got a couple of them in residential areas that I've been dealing with the ACP on.
So they're actually in residential building up six foot fences and putting those tow trucks in their yards.
So I want to eliminate them from being a resident.
We'll reach out to BACP and get some answers for you both.
Alderman Villegas, thank you for.
And I move to pass on this item.
Okay.
Thank you for bringing this to a 2.0 version.
I think a lot of us are very grateful to you.
A lot of us have issues with tow, with these road towing.
And I do agree we're going to need a 3.0.
but this is a good next step and we all appreciate you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Alderman Mitz moves to pass.
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
The opinion of the chairs, the ayes have it.
The motion is passed.
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
The next item is 02025-0015576,
an ordinance to amend Section 4-58-030.
of the municipal code of chicago to prohibit byob on portion of division street in the first ward
the chair recognizes alderman lispada
test test assess thank you thank you very much chair thank you very much colleagues so our our
city municipal code does permit the prohibit prohibition of by byob through byob moratoria
this would actually be the first in the city.
We wanted to make sure that we got this right
and for the right reasons.
There was written notice that went out to all impacted
or even potentially impacted businesses along this corridor.
We did not hear negative feedback.
Why are we doing this?
We have a lot of great businesses and restaurants
with tavern licenses on this stretch.
We have a lot of great businesses and restaurants
with incidental liquor licenses,
where we've had concerns and particularly public safety
and gun violence related concerns is acutely related
to businesses that have abused the city's policies
related to BYOB.
Noting this, for this particular stretch, for this time,
we would like to institute a BYOB moratoria.
We believe this is essential to restoring the vibrancy
of this commercial corridor, to keeping it safe
for all of our current and hopeful businesses in this area.
And I would ask the committee's favorable consideration.
Any questions?
Alderman Cardona.
Thank you, Chairwoman.
What's the 100 block of division you're talking about?
From Damon to Western.
Wow. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Any other questions?
Alderman Martin moves to pass. All in favor say aye.
Any opposed? In the opinion of the chairs, the ayes have it.
The motion is passed.
Thank you.
The next item on the agenda is 02025-0014904,
an ordinance to amend Chapter 4-4 of the Municipal Code of Chicago
prohibiting the sale of cannabinoid hemp products within the Lake Calumet area.
We do have a substitute.
Alderman Gardner makes a motion to recognize the substitute.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Opinion of the chairs.
The ayes have it.
The substitute is before us.
And the chair recognizes Alderman Beal.
Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the committee.
First of all, I would like to thank the chairman for her leadership on this particular ordinance.
We all know that this ordinance was sent to the Rules Committee,
and we were successful in bringing it to this rightful committee
in order to prohibit the sale of hemp products in the Ninth Ward.
After speaking with my neighbor to the east, Alderman Chico,
he wanted to join in and do a broader ordinance to prohibit hemp products and just not just the
ninth ward but also include the tenth ward and so we changed the name from the roseland hemp
to basically the lake calumet area which we both represent and so this is a huge problem
in our community i've had a couple of hemp products stores open up and kids are going
in and out of it, and it's unregulated.
And I want to continue to commend the governor to try to ban these type of products across
the entire state instead of having Chicago attempt to try to regulate it in order to
get tax revenue off of it.
We need to make sure that we ban this because a lot of kids are using it, and this is detrimental
to our community.
So with that, I ask for your favorable support.
You all passed a similar ordinance a few months ago with Alderman Quinn and Tabarez
And this is basically the same ordinance that they passed out of this committee. So I ask via favorable support
Any questions or comments?
Alderman Conway moves to pass all in favor say aye
Any opposed?
In the opinion of the chairs, the ayes have it. The motion is passed. Thank you. Congratulations
The next item is 02025-0015853, an ordinance to amend Section 4-244-140 of the Municipal Code of Chicago, prohibiting peddling in portions of the 15th Ward.
I believe Alderman Lopez, are you on remote?
I am here, Chairman.
You have the floor.
Thank you, Chairman, and good morning, members of the committee.
We're here today with an ordinance to restrict peddling in an expanded section of the new 15th Ward.
This is required for us to be able to protect the nearly 500 businesses that are facing undue competition from individuals who do not pay into our systems,
who do not have brick and mortars and who oftentimes are providing unfair competition
to our neighborhood institutions.
So I would ask your favorable consideration for this item.
Thank you.
Any questions by committee?
Vice Chair Chico moves to pass.
All in favor say aye.
Any opposed?
The opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it.
The motion is passed.
Thank you, committee.
The next item 02025-0015979. I do not believe we have anyone here from Alderman Taylor's office. So we will be holding that in committee. And as far as item number 702025-0016041. I also don't believe we have anyone here from Alderman Burnett's office.
yeah Alderman Burnett is here
okay
chair recognizes Alderman Burnett
yeah thank you madam chairman and members
of the committee this is just
a lifting of the moratorium
to allow for a package food store
to be able to sell wine
in this area they met before
our local community organization
which is the Near North Neighbors Association
everyone
in the committee supported it
the police officers were there
there's no objections to it.
Any questions by committee?
Alderman Cardona moves to pass.
All in favor say aye.
Any opposed?
In the opinion of the chairs, the ayes have it.
The motion is passed.
The last item on the agenda is 02025-0015972,
an ordinance to correct subsection 4-60-023
to allow the issuance of additional package good licenses
on a portion of Devon Avenue.
in the 50th Ward.
I'll speak on that.
We had previously introduced an ordinance.
It needed to be corrected.
We are lifting the moratorium on the Devon Avenue.
This business is on the corner,
and so we're lifting the moratorium on Devon
and reinstating their previously lifted on Kedzie.
It's just a correction.
That's all we're doing here.
Any questions?
Alderman Cardona moves to pass. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? In the opinion of the
chairs, the ayes have it. The motion is passed. This concludes the agenda of the committee on
license. The past matters will be reported as recommended to pass at the next city council
meeting on April 16th, 2025. There being no further business before the committee, can I
get a motion to adjourn? Alderman Conway moves. Hearing no objections, so order this meeting
is adjourned thank you all