Jesse Henry knows San Francisco. He also knows cannabis. “This city is built for tourists. We put a lot of work into giving them a San Francisco experience.”
Indeed. In a recent report from the Associated Press, Henry, the general manager of a cannabis lounge called The Barbary Coast, extolled the virtues of providing tourists a place to smoke legal marijuana.
“There’s nothing like this in Jersey,” Atlantic City resident Rick Thompson told the Associated Press as he was enjoying the herb with relatives in the City by the Bay.
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According to the AP report:
In fact, there’s nothing like the Barbary Coast lounge almost anywhere in the United States, a conundrum confronting many marijuana enthusiasts who find it increasingly easy to buy pot but harder to find legal places to smoke it.
Only California permits marijuana smoking at marijuana retailers with specially designed lounges. But it also allows cities to ban those kinds of shops.
Unsurprisingly, San Francisco is the trailblazer. It’s the only city in the state to fully embrace Amsterdam-like coffee shops, the iconic tourist stops in the Netherlands where people can buy and smoke marijuana in the same shop.
Other California cities aren’t far behind, according to the story. Oakland and Alameda, two cities east of San Francisco, allow public consumption. Los Angeles, West Hollywood, South Lake Tahoe and Sacramento are among the locales which appear to be open to the idea.
Will The Idea Travel To Other States?
In Colorado, lawmakers failed to pass a law allowing social consumption. Bu Denver allows lounges where consumers can bring their own marijuana. Nevada will vote on it in 2019. Oregon and Alaska have rejected the notion.
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Massachusetts has tabled the idea for now, but is expected to take a look at the concept.
“Those who wish to consume cannabis are going to do so whether social sites exist or not, and are going to make driving decisions regardless of where they consume,” Jim Borghesani, spokesman for the Massachusetts chapter of Marijuana Policy Project, told the AP. “Social sites will simply give cannabis users the same options available to alcohol users.”
