The SF Department of Public Health gave pot dispensary lounges the “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” signal on Tuesday, and you’d better believe that some of those lounges were firing up come Wednesday morning.
If you walked into one of the dozen or so San Francisco cannabis dispensaries that have smoking lounges (they prefer to be called "consumption lounges") today, you may have noticed things were a little hazier than normal. The San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH) sent those dispensaries an announcement Tuesday that just like the removal of the indoor mask restrictions that took effect today, they were also lifting the restrictions on cannabis smoking at licensed lounges, and those lounges can blaze up in their full glory again.
“That restriction was lifted,” DPH liaison Mohammed Malni said at Wednesday afternoon’s San Francisco Cannabis Oversight Committee meeting. “All of the permitted cannabis consumption lounges were notified yesterday of the restriction being removed from the current health order. They were all very happy about that. And I’m sure people are actively consuming as we speak right now.”
Oh hell yes they are actively consuming. A glance at the website of Market Street dispensary Moe Greens shows the message “2/16/22: The Lounge will be reopening for smoking, dabbing and vaping! Come on down and hang out like it was 2019!”
That’s funny and all, but they are exaggerating on the 2019 thing. SF Weekly reported in June that five dispensaries had reopened their cannabis lounges, during that whole reopen everything June 15 because COVID is over phase we went through. But that shit came to a complete halt in July, when the Delta wave forced the DPH to shutter the smoking lounges once again.
If you’re visiting one of these dispensary lounges, you do need to show proof of vaccination (unlike just walking into a dispensary, which does not have a vaccination requirement). A recent negative COVID test will also do, but it can't be an over-the-counter COVID test, it has to be verified by a lab. “The order itself explicitly states that it cannot be a home test,” Malni said.
Related: One of SF’s Biggest Cannabis Dispensaries is Poised to Hit Valencia Street [SFist]
Image: Courtesy Moe Greens
