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Lawndale lights display aims to be bigger, brighter this year
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FREE Vol. 35 No. 49
December 8, 2021
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Also serving Garfield Park
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Covid cases rising in county jail, page 3
Austin natives say their Black-owned vodka puts quality first Ted Robinson and his brother Joe Moton created PlayPen Vodka during the pandemic last year By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
Ted Robinson can still recall the moment he and his younger brother, Joe Moton, decided that they would go into business for themselves. They came up with the concept right here on the West Side. “We were at my mom’s house in Austin on the Fourth of July, at the height of the pandemic in 2020,” Robinson recalled. “My brother was working in the restaurant industry and I worked in insurance and healthcare. We were kind of just talking and my brother said, ‘I really want to, you know, start my own liquor line.” What followed were a litany of basic questions: Who, what, why and how among others. That inquiry in 2020 has since evolved into the brothers launching PlayPen Vodka — what Robinson says is likely the only fully Blackowned spirit company in the state. The vodka is distilled by Karl Loepke’s Skeptic Distillery Co., 2525 W. Le Moyne St. in Melrose Park. “We finished our first completed pallet in November of 2020 and by April 2021, we were able See VODKA on page 6
Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
Trees flourish at Douglass Park in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood on April 13, 2021.
City to plant more trees in Black and Latino neighborhoods The city earmarked $46 million to plant thousands of trees in areas lacking greenery, which West Siders say could improve public health By PASCAL SABINO Block Club Chicago
Efforts to make the West Side more lush and green may soon benefit from funds set aside in the city’s budget to make sure Black
and Latino neighborhoods get their fair share of trees. The city’s budget devotes $46 million to tree equity, which prioritizes tree planting in historically marginalized neighborhoods. There is a visible disparity between neigh-
borhoods like Lawndale, where trees can be scarce, and North Side neighborhoods like North Center, where the public way is rich with trees, flowers and greenery. See TREES on page 12
FREDRICK R.
CHI.GOV/REALSTORIES