😮‍💨 What do you know about consumption lounges?

Let’s start with a short story:

The year was 2019. The world didn’t know what COVID was; we ate with our fingers, coughed on strangers, and hugged each other with reckless abandon.

One night, I traveled to West Hollywood to deliver some of those reckless hugs to two of my Jane colleagues. We weren’t there just to say hello, or to see a show at the Troubadour, or to go to that Vanderpump place, or to do other things that I’d know if I was more familiar with WeHo - no, we were there to consume cannabis in public at (then-named) Lowell Cafe.

🐐 Lowell Cafe comes on the scene

I had heard a lot about the cafe, which was touted as “America’s first licensed cannabis consumption lounge and restaurant where diners can eat a meal while consuming cannabis or eat cannabis-infused edibles on the premises.” It’s a mouthful, but it’s true.

Consumption lounges were not necessarily new at the time; I think Barbary Coast had the first on-premise consumption in California, if not the whole country. The distinction, though, was that patrons would be able to sit and enjoy a meal while being served their cannabis products.

The cafe carried the name of Lowell Farms, a very popular cultivator - and one with beautiful branding. (I still have an ashtray that a Lowell rep gave me when I met him during a sales call. It’s on my desk) The pictures online looked resplendent, and the stoke was high.

🪞 Through the looking-glass

Security was heavy, as to be expected given the subject matter and the amount of hype around the place. We were guided through the beautiful facility, natural plant life creeping out of every nook and cranny, pleasing wood tones, cool branding reminders. We walked past endless rows of crowded tables, smoke in the air, lots of laughing.

A few things I noticed:

• The menu was extensive - just like a dispensary’s (after all, they had a retail license). Pre-rolls, flower, edibles, dabs - and you could borrow pipes and rigs and other accoutrements. But there was nothing low-dose…nothing. All of the flower had sky-high THC percentages

• The food was not great. It had a creative spin to it, for sure - but it wasn’t executed well. I remember thinking how much of a shame it was that the only thing you needed to get right for a group of intoxicated folks was done poorly. (It very well could have been an off night)

• Everyone was stoned, and no one could find the bathroom. In a traditional bar, people are losing inhibitions left and right with alcohol, and become annoyingly confident. Picture the exact opposite, and that was Lowell Cafe that night. Everyone was too high, and everyone was wandering around timidly, looking for the bathroom

🛖 The consumption lounge model

More and more state markets are welcoming on-site consumption for existing cannabis businesses, because the social aspect of cannabis - the simple act of being around other humans while partaking - seems to be compelling for a majority of people.

It’s also the right thing to do, because

1. Pretty much all state regulations stifle social connection: you can’t smoke in public, at all, so you are forced to consume in private. Cool if you want to be alone or two have a few friends over, not cool if you want to spread your wings and have a conversation with someone new

2. More license types open more ownership opportunities. Plain and simple

🗺 Where is this happening?

• California: consumption lounges (illicit or regulated) are not a novelty in The Golden State, and have been around for a while. In Oakland, for example, on-site consumption was legal (for certain licenses) since 2017. Magnolia Wellness was early, as were other Bay Area players like Barbary Coast, Moe Greens, and SPARC. Earlier this year, there was some legislative action around nuanced on-site consumption rules. But yeah, you can do it here

• Colorado: Denver and Aurora have approved consumption lounges

• Illinois: yep. GTI and others are getting after it

• New York: yeah, consumption lounges are part of the deal, but this is far off (2023) and the frameworks haven’t been determined

• New Jersey: up to the individual municipality - and some have opted for it

• Nevada: yes, and I recently interviewed Tina Ulman and Dani Barinowski, who lobbied for this change

🗡 No, there is too much. Let me sum up

($5 gift card to whoever emails me the origin of ^ that quote) 

Consumption lounges are a humane way to deal with stifling regulations that dictate your location while you partake in cannabis. They’ll grow in popularity, and soon, they will seem commonplace.

📚 tl: dr

• When I went to Lowell Cafe, no one could find the bathroom

• Consumption lounges are a humane way to offset the stifling rules around where you can consume your cannabis

• Lounge licenses also offer incremental business opportunities and more ways to get the plant into more hands that might benefit from it - so I’m very much for them

• California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Nevada are leading the charge so far

• It is Thursday