The Push for “Pot Pubs”

he scene at Ed Rosenthal’s Beyond Buds book release party this November looked like a vision of peace amid the waning drug war. A THC-infused chocolate fountain hummed near the dessert section; dab stations accented an art installation in a repurposed bus; ubiquitous joints circled the “private” event space. But the whole thing straddled the line of legality, and likely will continue to do so.

When people think of legalization, they often imagine Amsterdam-like “coffee shops” where folks can buy their treats, hang out and smoke. That is very much not the case. The implementation of Amendment 64 and Initiative 502 in Colorado and Washington has exposed a glaring oversight: Missing are legal places where consenting adults can enjoy cannabis the safest way possible—vaping or smoking it.

No “public” consumption provisions in those measures, combined with anti-workplace smoking laws have led to widespread bans on an elemental form of the cannabis culture: The coffee shop. Experts say these bans deprive citizens of the basic right to assemble, and push law-abiding folks—especially tourists—into much more hazardous behaviors. 

“’There are a lot of people that don’t have any place to go. This is about freedom of association.’”

Existing laws need to be tweaked, and future measures must take into account consumers’ actual behavior, said Taylor West, Deputy Director of the National Cannabis Industry Association. “There is a real question of why the law doesn’t allow for these places,” she said.

Cannabis has always had a communal aspect to it. Being with friends is among users’ most favored activities, surveys have shown. Since the ‘70s, the Netherlands has led the way with its popular coffee shops in Amsterdam. Those shops became models for safe access in California in the early ‘90s, notes Dale Gieringer, head of California NORML. 

Dennis Peron’s San Francisco Cannabis Buyer’s Club allowed on-site consumption in 1991, and to this day many—but not all—California dispensaries include anything from one or two vaporization stations to full-on lounges with bongs, dab rigs, papers, flat screen TVs and munchies. “That’s always been my vision,” said Gieringer. Yet even progressive Oakland bans lounges at its eight licensed dispensaries, and that legacy of discrimination continues in Colorado and Washington. 

Both states prohibit pot smoking in “public” and state officials moved to define “public” to include private businesses. A handful of members-only cannabis clubs—akin to cigar clubs—are open in Colorado, but they’ve had to fight for their lives. KC Stark, president, founder and CEO of Studio A64 in Colorado Springs, had to literally march on City Hall twice to remain open, he said. Studio A64 survived a planning commission meeting, a mayoral veto, and a full city council vote to stay open. “These bans are the definition of ‘separate but equal,’” said Stark. 

The City of Denver waged a similar war on the Denver Symphony, which won the right to hold three “Classically Cannabis” fundraisers in 2014. For $75, Symphony patrons could bring their own herb and partake in the private, open-air venue. Washington State is more repressive. Blue-collar Olympia, WA bar Frankie’s tried to turn its second floor into a cannabis lounge in 2013, but the state Liquor Control Board ruled any business with a liquor license qualifies as “public” in December 2013. The prohibition on public consumption is widely flouted in Washington, and Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes said the city is at work on licenses for lounges. 

Oregon, Alaska and Washington D.C.’s newly passed legalization initiatives all bar “public” consumption. But both Oregon and the District—and some cities in Alaska—carve out legal space for tobacco smoking in bars. Those states should create similar carve-outs for cannabis, Gieringer said. Many cannabis users can’t legally smoke in their multi-unit apartments, or at home with family, let alone in a park, on the street, in a car, or in public housing. “There are a lot of people that don’t have any place to go,” Gieringer said. “This is about freedom of association.”

It’s also about public safety. The Brookings Institute found in 2014 that Colorado’s ban on cannabis cafes “perversely” push people into more dangerous activities. There are almost no places for tourists to legally smoke in Colorado, Brookings researcher John Hudak said, so the laws currently “steer users toward more dangerous, less supervised forms of consumption,” Hudak writes. For example, they eat edibles, which are much harder to dose than smoking or vaping. Edibles caused New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd to think she had died. Another tourist over-ate edibles and jumped out of a hotel window to his actual death. “It’s a pretty serious concern,” Hudak said. All the better reason to specifically green-light lounges for consenting adults in the next legalization measures, said Gieringer. 

“Evidently we do. City attorneys and government people have taken a very aggressive view that the word ‘public’ is basically anything that’s open to the public—at all. It’s bizarre.”