23 Comments - A Well-Regulated Commenter - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 9:48 am: If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell. Lotta pounding the table in Naperville right now - Ducky LaMoore - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 9:50 am: ===In the past, police ran sting operations intended to catch violators urinating in the city’s parking garages as well.=== How do you run a sting operation to catch people peeing? Talk about a first world problem. - VerySmallRocks - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 9:53 am: Yes, the good folks of Naperville are congenitally conflicted. They’re very concerned about pollution and climate change, but refuse to allow development that is not car dependent and perpetuates sprawl, plus they don’t like how solar panels look. - JS Mill - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 9:58 am: 200 protesters? Sounds like mostly out of town agitators being brought in. /s Wikipedia lists the current Naperville population as 147,682. Protest was .0013% . Was it even large enough to be considered a “protest”? - Skeptic - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 10:06 am: “How do you run a sting operation to catch people peeing?” He’s got a point. You can’t dust for pee. - Michelle Flaherty - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 10:06 am: – catch violators urinating in the city’s parking garages as well – Oh my. Is this the Chris Lauzen stained-glass window parking garage? - OneMan - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 10:19 am: Ahh, the western suburbs Lake Woebegone and my neighbor to the east. I think one way Naperville can be described is by a feature that Amazon used to have (when they were more of a bookstore) about what was locally popular. In Naperville #1 was a book about moving from 100,000 to 1,000,000 planning the next moves in your career. For full disclosure, the #1 in my part of Aurora was about activity between consenting adults that as I understand it is mentioned extensively in the 50 Shades of Grey books. Naperville has an image of itself as the place to raise kids and be upper-middle class who is striving, I can recall how they used (and still may) spend money and time as a municipality to try and win livability awards. Anything that disturbs that image in unwanted and unwelcome, this is a town that fought a hooters knock-off from opening up and put all sorts of conditions on them (they eventually went away). A town that chased older business out of their downtown because they didn’t fit the image they wanted their downtown to have. Freaking out over a dispensary is so “on brand” for them, it should be used in colleges around the country to describe what “on brand” means for them. Talk to an Aurora cop about kids from Naperville and you get a very different story than the branding message. I just hope Aurora has enough sense to encourage a dispensary or six to open up on RT 59 so they are nice and convenient for our Naper-Neighbors. Like Joesph Naper’s Old Tyme Relaxment Herbs or something. - OneMan - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 10:20 am: == Oh my. Is this the Chris Lauzen stained-glass window parking garage? == Most likely, there are three parking decks downtown now. - efudd - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 10:23 am: “family friendly” My old man is one of the biggest family men you’ll ever meet. Growing up, our basement had a stocked bar that would put a lot a smaller taverns to shame and enough booze to inebriate a platoon. - @misterjayem - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 10:28 am: “Naperville has built its reputation over the years as a family friendly community,” said Jennifer Bruzan Taylor, one of the rally’s organizers. “There is nothing family friendly about marijuana.” I’m old enough to remember when people claimed that a bride holding onto her maiden name wasn’t “family friendly” Fortunately, times and families change. – MrJM - OneMan - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 10:39 am: Many years ago there was a discusion about the library having a subscription to Playboy. One speaker at the meeting played to the greatest fear of every adult in Naperville. She said it would negatively impact property values. Also looking to Aurora as your low income housing solution isn’t very family friendly either, but you have seemed cool with that for over 20 years. - JoanP - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 10:42 am: Broken record here, but if Ms. Taylor thinks there’s no marijuana in Naperville now, she is living in Fantasy Land. - Last Bull Moose - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 10:59 am: Marijuana distribution will happen in Naperville. People here are generally more savvy and tolerant than the extremists who show up at rallies. The town has lost children to the opioid crisis. If legal marijuana helps break up the illegal drug distribution networks, bring it downtown. - XonXoff - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 11:02 am: Oh but the wines… the wines and those flavored vodkas… and the tropical rums and craft beers… that’s all good and should retain easy-access in the liquor section of the local grocery and convenience stores. Makes me wonder how many protesters got so worked up they grabbed some booze on the way home and commenced to drinking on their patio — or spent the afternoon with friends in a local pub. Regardless, if the people of Naperville want a dispensary, they’re going to have to either speak up or go elsewhere. - Ano - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 11:07 am: Naperville attracts tons of out of towners on the weekend, and pretty much anytime. If you enjoy parking in a garage with the smell of a third world country or don’t mind having urine on your car, I guess the idea of catching people randomly urinating anywhere they want, other than a toilet, is not welcome. Most folks wouldn’t care for random urination though, I would think. - Unpopular - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 11:27 am: Thank you to these brave individuals who are willing to stand against the prevailing winds of pot normalization. - @misterjayem - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 11:57 am: “Thank you to these brave individuals who are willing to stand against the prevailing winds of pot normalization.” Three cheers for the heroic abnormalizers‼ – MrJM - OneMan - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 12:04 pm: == Thank you to these brave individuals who are willing to stand against the prevailing winds of pot normalization. == I am going to go out on a limb as 27 year resident of the Naperville/Aurora area and say most of these folks would really case less if it is sold at a dispensary in downtown Aurora. They can care less about the folks on the near East side of Aurora unless it is part of some brief showy volunteering. Their concern is image, not about big bad pot. If so they would have been pushing drug testing in the schools for the last 20 years. - Jocko - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 1:35 pm: ==Freaking out over a dispensary is so “on brand” for them== Spot on. I recall residents working themselves up into a lather over ComEd smart meters…while the high school was dealing with a heroin epidemic. - Kentucky Bluegrass x Featherbed Bent x Northern California Sinsemilla - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 2:15 pm: Well if they just cancelled their wine festival after 16 years this seems par for the course of their puritan values. I went to their wine festival around 2005 or 2006 and it was a great time, probably went home with two or three cases of wine after sampling dozens. Luckily i had a designated driver but perhaps having folks sampling and selling wine in the park is just not good for the family image of the community. - Alex Ander - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 4:39 pm: == “There is nothing family friendly about marijuana.” == Never tried the stuff, never have a reason to try it, but I wonder hown many times she’s taken an opioid for pain. - Lynn S. - Tuesday, Sep 3, 19 @ 10:22 pm: Naperville has a nightclub district? How many establishments, and how late are they open past 10 p.m.? - Touré's Latte - Wednesday, Sep 4, 19 @ 2:09 pm: Naperville’s City council punted to allowing a referendum so none of the Council have to make the call. It will be approved 60/40 next year. Regardless, sale of recreational weed will begin Jan 1, 2020. THAT is a certainty. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.