What's happening with the cannabis lounges? How long does it take to set up a few rules, issue some regulations, and open some stupid rooms where people can smoke?
Good question. But in a state where a single power base and political bloc calls all the shots, and that bloc opposes cannabis lounges, it can take a very long time.
This is 4/20, the unofficial annual marijuana celebration day, and we've been putting off answering this question, which we fielded a couple of months ago, until today. Given the snail's pace that this issue is moving along, we didn't think we were risking being tardy on any developments by delaying. And sure enough, we weren't.
Last November, the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board issued 40 provisional licenses for marijuana consumption lounges around the state, with a full 36 of them in southern Nevada (15 in Las Vegas and 21 in unincorporated Clark County). The 40 licensees were selected in a lottery out of 79 applicants; 20 applications were for standalone lounges, the rest will be connected to existing dispensaries. The operative word here is "provisional," since the licensees won in the lottery have to navigate a purposely circuitous maze before anyone's kicking back with flaming locoweed in a lounge.
Since November, the consumption lounges have been moving forward — at least from a turtle’s perspective.
Clark County finalized its regulations for lounges last December, while Las Vegas approved consumption lounges way way back in 2019 and was just waiting for the state to catch up; the City Council approved lounge regulations on March 1. Now, the selected licensees have to jump through a series of hoops.
For example, the 20 lounges not related to a dispensary have to buy or rent their locations, submit business and security plans, and pass the first of what could be several suitability investigations, for which there's no timetable. All the lounges will have to pass building, code, and security inspections. Among those are excessively stringent ventilation requirements; one lounge hopeful we heard of said the HVAC quote to bring the lounge up to code was in the six figures.
After all that and more red tape, lounges will have one year to open their doors.
Current projections are that the first lounges won’t open until the second half of 2023, but we're not holding our breath. Meanwhile, if you want to partake in a lounge that already exists, just to to NuWu's Vegas Tasting Room, attached to the Paiute dispensary in downtown Las Vegas, which doesn't fall under local or state jurisdiction.
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Jon Anderson
Apr-20-2023
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