On September 21, the Las Vegas City Council (LVCC) voted 5-1 in favor of allowing marijuana consumption lounges in select areas of the city as well as unincorporated Clark County—surrounding areas such North Las Vegas, Henderson, Mesquite and Boulder City opted out of such businesses.
The city did not respond to an earlier letter from the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board (NCCB), and therefore was automatically enrolled in the licensing process. However, the LVCC had the opportunity to pull out at the time of the vote and did not, voting nearly unanimously to move forward.
The lounges, once licensed and opened, will operate in much the same way as bars and taverns, except no alcohol sales will be permitted, and only existing cannabis dispensaries will be eligible for licensure—no licenses will be given to gaming establishments.
Nevada voters first legalized recreational marijuana use back in 2016, but the new lounges will be the first locations where individuals can legally smoke outside of private property. Since legalization, multiple officials have cited concerns about the fact that the tens of millions of tourists who come to the city every year have to indulge in parking lots, public streets and hotel rooms.
The lone detractor on the vote was Councilwoman Victoria Seaman, who argued that a better course of action would be to permit Clark County lounges first as a “trial and error” period before bringing them to Las Vegas. However, others were hesitant to go that route, given the fact that the second round of licensing would instead fall in the hands of state officials, which would make future passage for Las Vegas far from certain.
In all, a total of 20 licenses will be distributed throughout the state, and half of those have been reserved for communities who have been “adversely affected” by previous marijuana laws before legalization.
Now that the lounges have been approved, the next step for lawmakers will be to iron out regulations that were set forth in previous ordinances, including language in the Social Use Venue ordinance from 2019 as well as the 2021 state law that opened the possibility for such venues in the first place. Municipalities have the power to strengthen any state law regarding the lounges but may not weaken them.
As of now, the LVCC has not set any timetable for discussing and finalizing these regulations, but the NCCB has already announced that it would open a 10-day state license application window sometime in October.
Once applicants enter the state process, they will designate the jurisdiction they wish to operate in—which cannot be changed once selected—before entering that jurisdiction’s protocol. The city of Las Vegas expects to open its process in the first quarter of 2023.
Although the city technically had the ability to opt out, it probably would have created legal snafus, because the majority of state applicants will likely indicate Las Vegas as its preferred jurisdiction. Las Vegas City Manager Jorge Cervantes told the Las Vegas Review-Journal before the vote that the city was “already in, so it’ll be hard to get out.”
That said, most council members viewed the lounges as just another way to drive business in the area. Councilwoman Olivia Diaz told the Review-Journal that she was not in love with the premise, but voted in favor because of “business opportunity that consumption lounges will bring, and also some relief of issues we’re currently hearing about a lot because we’re not offering a place for folks to actually consume when they buy.”
