Though public spaces where customers can legally consume marijuana are still a rarity in the United States, a recent spate of cannabis license approvals in West Hollywood, California will drastically increase the number of pot lounges open nationwide.<\/p>\n
While San Francisco, Denver and Oakland, California together have\u00a0about a dozen<\/a>\u00a0permitted cannabis smoking lounges open today, this December, the city of\u00a0West Hollywood approved licenses for 16 consumption-friendly facilities<\/a>. Eight of these venues will be edible-only, while the other half will allow smoking, vaping and edibles. The city also approved licenses for 24 other cannabis storefronts, including medical dispensaries, adult-use retail stores and delivery services.<\/p>\n The momentum for these approvals has been building at the municipal level since late 2017, when the West Hollywood city council originally set the plan in motion. At the time, they called for a merit-based selection program in which applicants were asked about what made their model \u201cinnovative,\u201d as well as \u201ctheir connection to West Hollywood, proposed operations, social equity and product offerings,\u201d according to a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0from the city announcing the top scoring license applicants. Prospective licensees filed their answers in the spring. The city even went as far as scoring the applicants\u2019 plans for interior and exterior design concepts, along with the more obvious criteria like a security plan and the amount of experience the team has. WeHo\u2019s city manager picked a five-person team to review the 300 applications, filed by 120 different applicants.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were truly impressed by the quality and caliber of the applications that the city received,\u201d the official report noted in December. \u201cMany of the proposed businesses were unique, innovative and world class. We also want to say how excited we are to soon have\u00a0consumption lounges<\/a>\u00a0in the city, many of the top concepts will be the first of their kind in the country, if not the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Flore West Hollywood \u2014 set to allow vaping, smoking and edibles \u2014 was the\u00a0top-scoring consumption site<\/a>. According to a deck from WeHo, Flore intends to apply the farm-to-table model to food and flower and will feature an outdoor patio, lined with Spanish and Moroccan tiles, as well as a fountain and a photographic trip through the history of cannabis and West Hollywood. Their tableside \u201cFlower Service\u201d will be accompanied by a seasonal menu of dining options, and customers will be able to order their food \u201cvirgin\u201d or with up to 10 mgs of THC.<\/p>\n Over recent years, particularly as California has been writing its new adult-use cannabis regulations,\u00a0California NORML<\/a>\u00a0has been working to give consumers access to safe consumption sites.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re glad to see consumption rooms opening as part of the move towards freedom and legalization. The positive socialization aspect of cannabis use is long-established and forcing people to consume only in their homes (if permitted) separates people unnecessarily,\u201d Ellen Komp, deputy director of California NORML, told Cannabis Now.<\/p>\n She went on to explain how these types of facilities are an important part of where she sets the bar for legalization. \u201cIt\u2019s not legal enough to me until people can use cannabis in the way they might go into a\u00a0bar<\/a>\u00a0to socialize and consume,\u201d said Komp.<\/p>\n But in advance of the green light for consumption lounges, California NORML is also advocating for the usage of human performance-testing apps like\u00a0MyCanary<\/a> so that people can test their potential impairment level before getting on the road after consuming cannabis.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are concerned about consumption rooms for edibles, since the effect of those can impact someone hours after consuming,\u201d said Komp. \u201cWe advocate for low-dose edibles in such circumstances, and for public health warnings about the lag time between consumption and effect, as well as facilitating alternate transportation option like Uber, buses or trains.\u201d<\/p>\n Hopefully, those running WeHo\u2019s new consumption lounges take heed.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, have you been to a cannabis consumption lounge?<\/p>\n The post West Hollywood Is Set to Double the Number of Pot Lounges in the U.S.<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Though public spaces where customers can legally consume marijuana are still a rarity in the United States, a recent spate of cannabis license approvals in West Hollywood, California will drastically increase the number of pot lounges open nationwide. While San Francisco, Denver and Oakland, California together have\u00a0about a dozen\u00a0permitted cannabisContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[148,4408,50,1592,7294,99,7312,7313,7314,2948],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32456"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32457,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32456\/revisions\/32457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Applications Reviewed, Licenses Awarded<\/h4>\n
A Victory for Destigmatization<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: West Hollywood Is Set to Double the Number of Pot Lounges in the U.S.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"