Get ready for some very long lines if you’re planning to buy marijuana in Chicago on Jan. 1, when recreational sales become legal.

Under new rules issued today for a lottery process that will be used for new dispensaries, only the 11 existing medical locations are likely to be available to serve recreational customers on New Year’s Day.

Once it became clear that the city was going to take a go-slow approach to marijuana, including controversial zoning laws that prohibit retail sales from much of downtown, cannabis companies have been quietly speculating that there might not be any new dispensaries open in the city by Jan. 1.

A lottery held Nov. 15 will determine the order in which existing medical license holders can seek new recreational-dispensary locations in seven districts of the city. Winners would then have to submit applications to the Zoning Board of Appeals to receive special-use permits to open a dispensary. Before receiving approval, license seekers would have to hold public meetings to get community input on opening a retail dispensary.

The lottery attempts to solve a very real problem: how to allocate limited locations to marijuana companies that have been working overtime since the recreational-use law passed July 1 to find the best sites around the city. But it further slows the rollout for Illinois’ recreational-use program, which was on a fast track in the six months between when the law took effect and when sales are set to begin.

The timetable has been ambitious from the start, and that was before the inevitable bureaucratic hiccups began to emerge. Municipalities, which were given effective local control over whether to allow cannabis sales even though the state legalized use, have been slow to approve retail sites that will be necessary to deliver recreational product Jan. 1.

The state itself has to resolve a number of technical issues and mistakes in the 610-page law. A trailer bill to address those hiccups is expected during the short veto session of the General Assembly that begins this week.

The city of Chicago chose a lottery in an effort to match supply and demand for weed shops. While the state’s largest city is a juicy target for marijuana companies, Mayor Lori Lightfoot made clear she wanted to spread the wealth, distributing retail shops across wealthy and poor neighborhoods alike. The city is divided into seven zones, which will allow seven licenses each. “The purpose is to have even distribution of dispensaries throughout the city,” said Paul Stewart, an adviser to Lightfoot who has been the point person on how cannabis sales will play out.

“We could only move as fast as we received direction from the state of Illinois," he said. "As we digested those rules, we began to develop our regulatory framework. This is a new industry that we want to support, and we want to make sure it’s stood up in Chicago responsibly.”

That road map, however, is complicated.

The state decided that the existing cannabis companies that served the medical-marijuana market would automatically be grandfathered into recreational pot sales. That means 55 existing medical dispensary licenses automatically would be authorized by the state to sell to recreational customers. They also would be allowed an additional recreational dispensary license for each medical license they hold.

Since the initial medical licenses were awarded by geography, there are 35 licenses in the greater Chicago region that potentially could seek locations in the city via the new lottery. “We assume most medical dispensaries that have the ability to locate in Chicago will do so, but it’s not a foregone conclusion," Stewart said.

Marijuana is like any other business, and license holders have their eyes on suburban locations, as well. Even if all of the existing license holders seek to open new dispensaries in the city, there would still be three zoning permits to issue. The state plans to award 75 new dispensary licenses (47 of them to be issued in the Chicago metro area) by May 1, which would require another lottery.