Consumer lounges on the horizon for Nevada

By the middle of next year, Nevada is ready to offer a new type of venue to get high.

State lawmakers on Wednesday approved funding for the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board to oversee so-called “cannabis consumption lounges” there.

The members of the Interim Finance Committee unanimously approved three items that the [Cannabis Compliance Board] with funds to recruit more staff, work with the attorney general to draft regulations, and channel cannabis revenue to fund education, ”according to the Nevada Independent.

The Independent reported that the committee would “provide $ 10.9 million to fund 23 new full-time regulators,” which would include “positions responsible for cannabis lounge licensing, pre-opening and ongoing compliance audits , Background checks and the determination of lounge suitability are responsible ”. and criminal investigations. “

Tyler Klimas, executive director of the Cannabis Compliance Board, told the committee on Wednesday that the additional funding will get the new companies on their way to opening their doors early next year.

“Everything is going as planned, we’re looking at at least the first quarter or the first half of 2022,” said Klimas, quoted by the Nevada Independent. “Not only that the lounges are open, but also the first part where we would begin to generate this income.”

The new breed of business kicked off last month after Nevada lawmakers passed law aimed at diversifying the state’s nascent recreational marijuana industry.

The legislation also included provisions for cannabis use lounges: “to provide for approval and regulation of cannabis use lounges by the Cannabis Compliance Board”; “To establish certain requirements for the approval of lounges for cannabis use”; and “Establish specific requirements for the operation of retail cannabis use lounges and independent cannabis use lounges”.

Consumer lounges won’t be the only positive change for the industry

The bill also requires the Cannabis Compliance Board to “adopt regulations setting out criteria for determining whether an applicant qualifies as a social justice applicant for the grant or renewal of an adult cannabis operating license for an independent cannabis use lounge”, defined as “To claimants who have been affected by previous laws criminalizing cannabis-related activities.”

In addition, the bill “empowers the board to lower certain fees related to an adult cannabis operating license for an independent cannabis use lounge for applicants for social justice” and “requires at least 10 of the first 20 adult cannabis operating licenses” for one independent cannabis use lounge issued by the board to social justice applicants. “

A report from the Cannabis Compliance Board earlier this year found that the state’s marijuana industry lacks diversity, with about 65 percent of owners and managers identifying as white.

Steve Yeager, a Democratic MP from Las Vegas, endorsed the legislation, which he celebrated as a blessing to the state’s recreational pot industry.

“It’s been a long way from the start of the 2013 session to the launch of pharmacies, so it’s really nice to see the industry mature,” said Yeager, quoted by the Nevada Independent. “The legislation that we see in this session is really a recognition that we got things right in the first place and that we are trying to take the next step.”

The bill also provides funding from cannabis sales for the state’s K-12 education. Yeager said Wednesday that the Nevada marijuana business “will be an industry that pays for itself and then hopefully will be able to fund education in ways that we all here in the legislature would like to be. “

Recreational marijuana was officially legalized in Nevada in 2017 after voters there voted to vote the previous year. Nevada is now one of seven states that have laws on the books that allow cannabis lounges, according to CannaCon.