Will California allow coffee and music at cannabis lounges?

David DownsPublished on March 3, 2023

The big game supercharges sales in Arizona, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and California. Above, Moe Greens cannabis lounge, San Francisco. (Leafly File Photo by Jamie Soja)

Moe Greens cannabis lounge in San Francisco supports new legislaton to allow food and music. (Leafly File Photo by Jamie Soja)

Six years after Californians legalized weed, it remains illegal to make a grilled cheese sandwich and serve it to someone in a licensed cannabis lounge. God forbid a folk singer strums a guitar, too. Someone could report the lounge to both the local Health Department and the Entertainment Commission.

But California legal cannabis laws might get less onerous this year with three proposed bills to allow prepared and served food, cannabis music events, and even licensed cannabis catering.

Listen to Leafly Senior Editor David Downs explain the legal lounge landscape in the state, and the bills’ odds—part of an interview with National Public Radio affiliate KCRW, a three-years-running ‘This Week in Weed’ segment.

Click to listen on this playbar below:

Read KCRW’s full post ‘Food and live music could come to cannabis lounges under CA bill.’

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audio California cannabis lounges interview legalization radio

David Downs

Leafly Senior Editor David Downs received a Literary Excellence Award from Oaksterdam University in 2022. On the cannabis beat since 2009, he’s published three books, including the best-selling cannabis crop science book ‘Marijuana Harvest.’ Downs guest lectured at the Loyola Marymount University Law School’s Journalism Law School, UC Berkeley Extension, and contributed to Continuing Education of the Bar’s Marijuana Law Hub, sponsored by University of California and the State Bar of California. Downs’ work has appeared in San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, Scientific American, Wired, Rolling Stone, The Onion, Columbia Journalism Review, High Times, Billboard, and many more. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from UC Santa Barbara, and was a Fellow at the Medill School of Journalism’s Academy of Alternative Journalism in Chicago.

View David Downs's articles

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