Effective immediately, officials in Denver have approved the implementation of Proposition 300, the city’s voter-backed social consumption law.
Good news for some marijuana consumers in the Mile High City, the approval of Proposition 300 allows various forms of consumption at authorized bars, restaurants, and other public places.
“The big catch,” according to The Associated Press, is that customers of these pot-friendly establishments won’t actually be able to “smoke” their Colorado chronic inside. Also, any business seeking a permit will need the approval of their neighbors.
A little more than a year after Proposition 300 was passed by 53.57 percent of Denver’s voters, their social consumption ordinance is now in full effect.
The four-year pilot program allows adult patrons of social use businesses, to BYOM (Bring-your-own-marijuana). To be in compliance, Denver’s licensed bars, cafés, and restaurants can allow indoor consumption – provided it’s restricted to vaping and edibles – with absolutely no smoking. For Denver’s licensed businesses with an outdoor area, vaping, edibles, and smoking will be permissible.
Denver Social Consumption Etiquette
- No sales in social consumption area
- No social consumption between 2 and 7 a.m.
- No more than 1 ounce of weed per individual
- Designated areas will be limited to adults 21 and over
- Social consumption areas must be at least 1,000 feet from any school
- Designated consumption areas outside must be concealed from public
- Denver’s cannabis consumption pilot program expires Dec. 31, 2020
No Amsterdam-Style Coffeeshops for Denver
Denver’s marijuana conundrum is more of a tourist issue than a local problem; most residents can go home and fire up, while 420-visitors are left out in the cold – with only a few places to smoke. While adults over the age of 21 can down their alcoholic beverages at countless establishments throughout the Mile High City and smoke or vape their nicotine-laced tobacco products in most open-air spaces, legal marijuana consumers lack the same rights.
Emmett Reistroffe of Denver Relief Consulting, the firm that helped pass Proposition 300, called out the program’s restrictive “new rules” on Facebook. Reistroffe vowed to address the program’s biggest hurdle – Denver’s zoning restrictions.
As designated in the Cannabis Consumption Pilot Program, any establishment within 1,000 feet of any school, child care facility, drug rehab facility, or city-run pools will be denied a license – which, Reistroffe explained, makes most of Denver’s interested businesses “ineligible from applying.”
Photo courtesy of Allie Beckett
https://www.marijuana.com/news/2017/11/denver-mile-high-city-first-in-us-to-permit-social-marijuana-use/