THE TRAVEL ISSUE
Dank Destination
HAZE FILLS THE AIR AT ORIGINAL CANNABIS CAFE IN WEST HOLLYWOOD.
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smoke scene Inside America’s Cannabis Consumption Lounges
leafmagazines.com
FEW THINGS are as sweet as getting stoned with a group of friends. But nothing beats sparking up in a public lounge where you’re surrounded by strangers who feel like friends due to one common interest: Cannabis. At one table people are smoking and playing cards. At another table people are sipping coffee, passing joints and chatting up the table next to them. On-site consumption lounges are more than just smoke dens where stoners go to get high – they’re hubs of sovereignty, where Cannabis smoke is a physical manifestation of freedom.
MAY 2022
For the past 50 years, Amsterdam coffeeshops were the holy grail of public consumption. They were some of the only places in the world where people could freely buy and smoke weed, though Amsterdam is now moving to ban tourists from visiting coffeeshops. Vancouver came online in 2001 with a consumption lounge called Cannabis Culture, which is still open for business. Oregon also had a lounge that opened in 2009 called Portland’s World Famous Cannabis Cafe, but it closed in 2016. And the Hitman Coffeeshop that opened in Downtown LA in 2017, though a happening spot, was also sadly short lived. On-site consumption culture has had a difficult time taking off in the West. We can blame prohibition for that. But even as more states legalize Cannabis, bars and cigar lounges still greatly outnumber public consumption venues for pot.
The tide appeared to be shifting at the end of 2019, when numerous cities around the country announced they’d open smoke lounges in 2020. But then Moe Greens the pandemic hit San Francisco and those plans were foiled. Pending and existing consumption businesses were forced to close (like most restaurants and bars) for the foreseeable future. “For destination businesses like ours, we were really hurt by [having to close] because consumption is a part of the experience and feel of our places,” says Nate Haas, owner of Moe Greens and part-owner of Barbary Coast – two popular smoke lounges in San Francisco. “It’s a very genuine, old-school experience. To have the attraction of our businesses taken away was very difficult.” Barbary Coast and Moe Greens (both of which are now open again) have dispensaries attached to their tasting
