Things are finally moving quickly for cannabis consumption lounges.
Three months ago, 40 dispensary owners and independent entrepreneurs were selected for licensing through a lottery conducted by the Cannabis Compliance Board.
A few weeks later, Clark County approved its own regulations for lounges. And following suit last week was the city of Las Vegas — the only other jurisdiction in Southern Nevada to permit the consumption lounges.
Scot Rutledge of Argentum Partners has been following the issue closely as a political consultant focusing on cannabis and shared the latest with State of Nevada host Joe Schoenmann.
On what's happening in the Nevada Legislature
There's several I'll be working on. But two of the most interesting one is Senate Bill 195, which provides for a lot of necessary clean-up. We've had a Cannabis Compliance Board in place for two and a half years and a lot of businesses in the industry, including my clients, are feeling the heavy hand of government and over-regulation. So that's a bill that that strives to clean that up. And hopefully we'll bring the CCB and the industry together on some real solutions. Second bill that is being introduced, was introduced this week, and should be heard in committee next week, is a bill that would allow for what are we calling audible vendor licenses; that name may change for the license type. And this is a type of license that would allow certain individual holds one to work with a retail store, perhaps a cannabis lounge, to provide cannabis at live events. And so there's going to be some discussion around events because of that bill. And it does go sort of hand in hand with the work that we've done in the past around cannabis lounges. And that's probably the one that the public will care the most about. Because it's about providing safe regulated cannabis sales at events, as well as making it legal to consume cannabis at events.
On casinos and major events
I don't think you'll see events in resort-casino properties because of gaming restrictions. But I do think it's possible, you will see events and other venues not located in a casino. But again, we're very early on in that bill. And there's a lot of different stakeholders that we want to weigh in. So we'll see where we end up. … The important thing to note is that anybody who's ever been to a concert can tell you that was a consumption event, right? Yeah. And so what we want to do is capture what is already happening, much like we did when we legalized cannabis and say, hey, it's here, it's happening. How can we build some structure around it and then support our local cannabis industry, allowing them to sell cannabis inside the footprint of those events?
On the comparison to bars
In Clark County, there was a decision to cut off all sales of cannabis products inside a cannabis lounge two hours before closing. This is not the same, as you see, generally with a bar that serves alcohol, usually there is a last call if that bar does close, in fact, but this is seemed a little extreme, or the way they were approaching it with cannabis lounges. But again, and in all fairness to those commissioners, they're dealing with something that no other jurisdiction has really had to address. And it being Southern Nevada and a huge tourist tourism destination, I think they were sort of erring on the side of being a little more conservative. And we can always come back to those rules later and look to change them if we need to. So that coupled with the county does require a review of your traffic safety plan, essentially, how are you going to try to mitigate drugged driving or driving under the influence of cannabis through your business practices and education with your guests or consumers? And I know that one of the clients I'm working with actually got their plan approved last week. And it was not an arduous process. And in fact, I think this does give the cannabis industry through these venues a chance to say "we can do it better" than perhaps the way bars have approached.
Guest: Scot Rutledge, partner, Argentum Partners
